Google Unveils Free AI-Powered Programming Assistant for Developers: Gemini Code Assist

Google has made it possible for developers to utilize their AI-powered coding assistant, Gemini Code Assist, at no cost. The service allows for up to 180,000 code modifications per month and offers free AI code reviews on GitHub.

Gemini Code Assist is built on Google’s Gemini 2.0 language model, tailored specifically for programming tasks rooted in real-world applications. It integrates seamlessly with Visual Studio Code and JetBrains IDEs. This tool can enhance lines of code directly in the development environment, generate code from scratch, or provide explanations for existing code via a chatbot interface.

Unlike web-based chatbots such as ChatGPT or Claude, the direct integration with IDEs eliminates the hassle of copying and pasting code snippets between windows. The assistant automatically considers the context of existing code, making it more efficient for developers.

While Gemini Code Assist supports a contextual window of up to 128,000 tokens in chat mode, the complete Gemini 2.0 model can manage up to two million tokens. This limitation could pose challenges when working with extensive professional codebases.

Google has confirmed support for 22 widely used programming languages, including HTML, Python, and R. However, it is likely that the AI can also work with less common languages. Nevertheless, as is often the case, the system may sometimes import outdated libraries or mistakenly reference functions, which makes the official list of supported languages less relevant in practice.

On GitHub, Gemini Code Assist can identify stylistic issues and errors, offering code improvement suggestions. Teams can create their own style guides for code review by adding a special configuration file to their repository.

Developers need a Gmail account to register at codeassist.google. For those requiring advanced features such as productivity metrics, private repository support, or integration with Google Cloud, the Enterprise plan is available starting at $54 per month.

A recent study by Google Cloud revealed that over 75% of developers are currently utilizing AI tools in their daily work. This trend has led to a significant increase in the market for AI-based coding assistants, with startup Anysphere, which has developed an AI-assisted VS Code, becoming the fastest-growing SaaS product in history.

Although developers have numerous coding assistants to choose from, Google aims to stand out by offering generous free usage limits for individual developers.

[Source](https://the-decoder.com/google-launches-free-version-of-its-ai-programming-assistant-gemini-code-assist/)