Google One, Alphabet Inc.’s subscription service offering cloud storage and artificial intelligence features, has surpassed 150 million subscribers, the company revealed to Reuters this week.

The milestone marks a 50% increase in subscriptions since February 2024, when the platform hit 100 million users—nearly six years after its launch. The surge follows the introduction of a $19.99 per month premium tier that includes access to exclusive AI capabilities unavailable to free users.

Google continues to offer lower-priced subscription plans for basic cloud storage, but these lack most of the AI features now central to the service’s premium appeal. Shimrit Ben-Yair, vice president overseeing Google One, noted that the new AI-focused tier has drawn in “millions” of subscribers on its own.

The growth of Google One reflects Alphabet’s broader strategy to reduce its reliance on advertising, which accounted for more than three-quarters of the company’s $350 billion in revenue last year. As the rise of AI chatbots—like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s own Gemini—disrupts traditional search engine models, Alphabet is increasingly looking to subscriptions as a key revenue stream.

The stakes are high. In recent court testimony, an Apple executive revealed that AI tools had triggered the first-ever decline in search activity on the Safari browser. That announcement wiped $150 billion off Alphabet’s market value, underscoring the fragile future of search-based advertising.

While AI tools have yet to integrate advertising as seamlessly as traditional search engines, many companies are pivoting to monetization models built around subscriptions and usage-based pricing.

Responding to investor concerns earlier this year, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai hinted at a subscription-first approach to monetizing its AI products: “Just like you’ve seen with YouTube, we’ll give people options over time. For this year, I think you’ll see us be focused on the subscription direction.”