Hello Google AI Support Team,
My Google AI Studio account is currently restricted to generating API keys starting with the “AQ.” prefix instead of the standard “AIza” format.
Because of this, my local development tools, SDKs, and third-party integrations are completely blocked, throwing 401 UNAUTHENTICATED (ACCESS_TOKEN_TYPE_UNSUPPORTED) or 400 INVALID_ARGUMENT errors.
Actions I have already taken to secure my account:
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I have deleted all old, compromised, or exposed API keys from my Google AI Studio Dashboard.
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I have verified and secured my local project environments (including adding .env files to .gitignore). I have verified my billing setup/prepaid balance on the affected projects.
Could a community manager or engineer please review my account restriction and restore my ability to generate standard AIza prefix keys so I can resume development?
Thank you for your assistance.
Hello @AGGREEM_GUPTA ,
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!
I have the same problem, could someone give us a solution?
I guess most people are running older OpenClaw or OpenCode versions that have a hardcoded regex to check the Gemini API key format. Because the format has shifted with the migration to AQ (authorization) keys—which are tied to service accounts—those older regular expressions fail to recognize the new keys as valid, throwing errors even if the key itself is perfectly fine.
One way to resolve this is to go to your GCP dashboard, create a dedicated API key, and then bind it to a service account. This is the only solution I can think of, but the September final enforcement will definitely break it for everyone, as standard keys with restricted access will be rejected by the Gemini API.