Google, as a part of its drive to unify all of its artificial intelligence (AI) offerings under a singular umbrella, renamed its experimental AI tool Studio Bot to Gemini in Android Studio on Monday. The AI chatbot was first unveiled last year as a tool for Android app developers to help in coding and answering queries relating to Android libraries and functions. Additionally, the tech giant also upgraded the AI chatbot by adding the support of Gemini 1.0 Pro.
The announcement was made by Sandhya Mohan, Product Manager, Android Studio in a post on the Android Developers Blog. Explaining that the AI-powered coding assistant can be accessed directly in the integrated development environment (IDE), Mohan said, “It can accelerate your ability to develop high-quality Android apps faster by helping generate code for your app, providing complex code completions, answering your questions, finding relevant resources, adding code comments and more — all without ever having to leave Android Studio.”
Gemini in Android Studio is a specific AI tool designed to assist developers in resolving specific queries in natural language such as “What’s the best way to get location on Android” and “How do I add camera support to my app using CameraX”. But it can also do a lot more. The chatbot can also write codes, complete multiple lines of code, offer suggestions, and more.
With the addition of Gemini 1.0 Pro, the chatbot can remember the context of a conversation, allowing developers to ask follow-up questions without having to repeat the initial keywords. Further, Google says it has developed the tool with a focus on privacy. While the tool is not activated till a user has logged in and enabled it and most of the features do not require sending any code context, users also have an option to control what the chatbot reads while sharing contextual codes.
These options, which allow developers to get granular control over the tool, are given in settings. Additionally, using an .aiexclude file will allow users to customise which files and folders Gemini cannot access. Gemini in Android Studio is currently available in preview, but with access in more than 180 countries, users can try it out in Android Studio Jellyfish.