Google has announced that Gemini 1.0 Pro is being used in Android Studio now to help developers write better code more quickly. It said that Gemini in Android Studio (formerly Studio Bot) is still in preview despite the major model update and can be used at no-cost for the time being.
For a bit of background, Gemini in Android Studio is a coding assistant that is built right into Android Studio. It can assist with generating app code, providing complex code completions, answering your questions, finding relevant resources, adding code comments, and more.
When ChatGPT was first released to the public, people began using it for coding help and since then bots have only gotten better at coding tasks. Pretty early on, tech companies ordered employees to stop using these bots for coding because of data collection concerns.
With Gemini for Android Studio, Google is hoping to allay privacy fears. Outlining the steps it has taken, the company said:
“Gemini in Android Studio was designed with privacy in mind. Gemini is only available after you log in and enable it. You don’t need to send your code context to take advantage of most features. By default, Gemini in Android Studio’s chat responses are purely based on conversation history, and you control whether you want to share additional context for customized responses. You can update this anytime in Android Studio > Settings at a granular project level. We also have a custom way for you to opt out certain files and folders through an .aiexclude file. Much like our work on other AI projects, we stick to a set of AI Principles that hold us accountable.”
It’s also worth mentioning that if you’re a developer that wants to join the AI bandwagon, you can now use the Gemini API Starter template in Android Studio Canary by heading to File > New Project > Gemini API Starter. Using this you can start work on apps that have generative AI features built in.
At the end of its announcement, Google says that Gemini for Android Studio “is currently no-cost for developers to try out.” It’s not clear if Google plans to charge for this feature in the future but it sort of sounds like it could.
Source: Android Developers Blog