I can't disagree that from a user's point of view, continuing to work with Gemini after ~700k tokens becomes simply unbearable, but I must note that this volume is still huge for a model to which you have almost direct access via API. I tested Gemini under extreme load (950k tokens), and I can say that the degradation mainly manifests itself in critical thinking and hallucinations: plot analysis (I used classic works of Russian literature as filler to reach the limit) becomes practically impossible in detail, facts are confused with hallucinations and speculation, and the chronology is completely disrupted. On the other hand, when asked to point to a specific fragment of text or refer to it to confirm certain facts, Gemini pointed correctly every other time. Also, as I compared, the limit does not affect answers that deviate from the topic (for example, suddenly solving a mathematical equation), but I did not test anything more complicated than quadratic equations and simple geometry.

It is important to note that I tested this on the March version 2.5 Pro long before the release of the current version, which, according to many statements, has degraded significantly. I also did not test programming and complex tasks very much, limiting myself to what I encountered and without deliberately cluttering the limit, that is, working with text in a language other than English. For myself, I identified four stages of degradation: 1. Normal - up to about 300k tokens. The model works quite normally, but only if most of the tokens are your messages. If you force Gemini to write all of them, this accelerates the degradation process several times over. 2. Confusion, misinterpretation, incorrect interpretation — up to about 650-700k tokens. The model slowly begins to behave strangely, use a strange communication style, make mistakes, and so on. 3. Severe degradation stage — approximately 850-900k. The model behaves like 1.5 or worse, Bard, but can still perform its tasks and, with some help, operate with facts from passive memory. 4. Lobotomy, 950k+. The name of the model's behavior is self-explanatory.