Google stopped putting so much money into SOTA models. All the hype has migrated. I was also frankly turned off when I got a popup from Gemein said I would either have to pay or have my conversations used for training. This may have always been true for other providers but when I declined, Gemini stopped remembering my conversations and that definitely made me move out.

Gemini said that?

Gemini is what I mostly use (good enough, basically free - or massively generous free limits, and to me Google as a company is a LOT less objectionable than all the US-based alternatives), but I don't recall it ever saying that.

OTOH, my basic assumption online is that there is no privacy, and free AI in exchange for acknowledged lack of privacy seems fair enough.

Gemini 3.8 which just came out sounds like it's very good and a great deal though.