Account restricted to AQ. keys — free tier quota locked at 0, requesting restoration

Google AI Studio
1

My account has been restricted to generating AQ. prefix keys rather than standard AIza. keys. Every API call returns:

Quota exceeded for metric: generativelanguage.googleapis.com/generate_content_free_tier_requests
limit: 0, model: gemini-2.0-flash

What I’ve tried:

  • Created multiple new projects in AI Studio — each immediately generates AQ. keys with limit: 0

  • Tested on two separate Google accounts — both restricted to AQ. keys

  • Tested Gemini 1.5 Flash and Gemini 2.0 Flash — same error on both

Context:

I’m building an app for an industrial site. The app uses Gemini 2.0 Flash for wear analysis on a component. It’s a single-site internal tool, not a public product. No keys have been exposed publicly — the key is stored in a server-side HTML file on Firebase Hosting.

The AI Studio UI shows “Free tier” on these projects, but the backend quota is 0. The accounts have no visible security alerts or policy violations.

Could a Google engineer review the account flag and restore standard AIza. key generation?

Thank you.

2

We are moving away from Traffic keys (Alza) and towards a more secure Authentication Key (AQ). AI Studio will now only generate Authentication Key (AQ) keys. More information on key usage can be found in the Using Gemini API keys documentation.

Please submit any compatibility issues with services / SDKs etc. in this form for our engineering team to review. Thanks!

3

Thanks Jon. Understood that AQ keys are the new standard- that makes sense.

The issue I’m experiencing is separate: all AQ keys I generate (across multiple projects and accounts) return HTTP 429 with generate_content_free_tier_requests limit: 0. The free tier quota appears to be hardlocked at zero, not just exhausted.

New projects, new keys- same result. Is there a step required to activate the free tier quota on new projects using AQ keys? Or is billing now required to use Gemini API at all?