In an announcement on Tuesday, Google revealed the integration of third-party tool support into its enterprise-focused coding assistant, Gemini Code Assist. This development marks a significant enhancement to the AI-powered code completion service, which debuted in April as a successor to the Duet AI branding.
Gemini Code Assist, accessible through plug-ins for widely-used development environments such as Visual Studio Code and JetBrains, operates on Google's advanced Gemini AI models. These models are designed to provide developers with the capability to analyze and modify extensive sections of code efficiently.
The newest feature—currently available in a private preview—enables Code Assist to incorporate real-time data and retrieve information from external applications. This integration aims to streamline the coding process by minimizing interruptions from context switching. Google’s Director of Product Management, Ryan Salva, and Group Product Manager, Prithpal Bhogill, emphasized the impact of this feature in a joint blog post.
"This new tools feature can help eliminate the friction of context switching," wrote Salva and Bhogill. "Getting scalable, secure applications into production requires more than just writing great code — developers need solutions for productivity, observability, security, databases, and more."
Initially, the development of tools for Code Assist is limited to Google Cloud partners. This strategic limitation ensures a curated environment where high-quality tools can flourish. Salva and Bhogill noted, "Tools enable developers to retrieve information from, or act on, any part of their engineering system — which is especially helpful for services outside the developer environment."
At launch, Code Assist tools will be available from industry leaders including GitLab, GitHub, Sentry.io, Atlassian Rovo, and Snyk, along with Google’s own Google Docs. Google Cloud partners interested in developing new tools are encouraged to engage with their partner managers for further information.
Code Assist is positioned as a rival to GitHub’s Copilot Enterprise, which functions with extensions that are similar to Code Assist’s tools. However, Google distinguishes its offering with features such as support for codebases that are hosted on-premises.
Over the past year, Code Assist has undergone significant upgrades that include improved code transformation capabilities and the introduction of an enterprise plan offering personalized code suggestions tailored to private code repositories.
Despite ongoing concerns regarding the security, copyright, and reliability of AI-powered coding assistance, developer interest continues to rise. According to a recent survey by GitHub, a vast majority of respondents have integrated some form of AI tool into their workflow. GitHub's Copilot has notably amassed over 1.8 million paying users and upwards of 50,000 business clients as of April.
```
