Google may have removed its vow to never use artificial intelligence (AI) for warfare, but hey – at least we’re getting some free coding help out of it. Right? Google Cloud announced today that its code-optimised Gemini Code Assist tool is adding a free version for individual developers who need a hand in the coding department.
Like the premium model, it’s kitted out with the Gemini 2.0 model to ensure the “quality of AI-generated recommendations” is “better than ever before,” Gemini Code Assist for individuals landed globally today as part of a public preview, targeting students, start-ups, and even full-blown engineers.
Free, you say?
Gemini Code Assist (we’re dropping the ‘for individuals’ bit) supports all coding languages (in the public domain), according to Google, and offers a far more extensive cap than the rest of the code-assistance tools out there. Google claims the standard for free plans elsewhere is roughly 2,000 ‘code completions’. Google offers “practically unlimited capacity” with up to 180,000 completions.
“Now anyone can more conveniently learn, create code snippets, debug and modify their existing applications — all without needing to toggle between different windows for help or to copy and paste information from disconnected sources,” Google said in its announcement.
Read More: Google Gemini just got a whole lot smarter, knows what you did last summer
There isn’t much Code Assist can’t do. You’ll need to make use of one of these IDEs (integrated development environments): Visual Studio Code or JetBrains, before you can get hold of the free version, which can generate entire blocks of code, rewrite your work to make it better, and even provide tips through a chatbot interface to help you learn as you go.
Supporting 38 languages at the time of launch, Code Assist can be instructed using natural language, ensuring that even newbies won’t be left out in the cold. That means quite literally asking Code Assist to “build me a simple HTML form with fields for name, email, and message, and then add a ‘submit’ button,” or “explain what this Python code snippet does and find any errors.”
“Gemini Code Assist for individuals comes with a generous token context window, with up to 128,000 input token support in chat. This large context window lets developers use large files and ground Gemini Code Assist with a broader understanding of their local codebases.”
