Generative AI on Android

This document gives an overview of generative AI on Android, including available Gemini models and associated SDKs.

Choose the generative AI solution that's right for you

High performance on-device AI

On supported Android devices you can deliver rich generative AI experiences without needing a network connection or moving data off-device. On-device generative AI models such as Gemini Nano are great solutions for use-cases where low latency, low cost, and privacy safeguards are your primary concerns.

Use cases

AI-enhanced content consumption: text summarization, document question answering, and entity extraction.
AI-assisted content generation: proofreading, grammar correction, writing assistance, and contextual smart replies.
Classifying text: sentiment or mood analysis
Privacy: unlocks generative AI features while keeping data on-device

Solution

Use the Google AI Edge SDK to leverage Gemini Nano inference on-device. The SDK is in private preview, and we are testing it with early access partners before making it generally available.

Learn more about Gemini Nano

Multimodal Cloud AI with Google's most capable models

You can create multimodal generative AI experiences in your apps by taking advantage of foundation models running inference in the cloud like the Gemini Pro models. These models are a great solution when you want to support the widest possible range of Android devices.

Use cases

Image and video description and captioning: identifying objects and describing them in text
Multimodal reasoning: processing text, image, and video content
Text generation: summarize articles, answer questions about textual content, extract entities.
Response formatting: format the model response to JSON or Markdown

Solutions

For prototyping your generative AI features, we recommend starting with the Google AI client SDK, which gives you access to the Gemini API and helps to simplify your app's interactions with the Gemini models. The Google AI client SDK is in preview and recommended only for prototyping.

Learn more about the Google AI client SDK

For bringing your AI experiences into production, use Vertex AI for Firebase, which is available as a preview. Similar to the Google AI client SDK, this SDK provides access to Gemini models. In addition, Firebase includes production-level support across various mobile platforms.

Learn more about Vertex AI for Firebase

AI for Enterprises

Vertex AI is Google's fully-managed, unified AI development platform for AI. Enterprises can use Google's Vertex AI platform to deliver customized AI experiences to Android devices using backend integrations. Build, train, and deploy AI applications on Google's scalable, world-class infrastructure. It's a great solution for enterprise-scale AI, with access to over 130 models and tools including AI Studio, Agent Builder, and Gemini models.

Use cases

Custom model training and delivery
Image and video generation
Virtual agents, customer support
Speech to text, natural language processing

Solution

Use Google's Vertex AI platform to build custom AI applications and connect Android apps to the service layer.

Learn more about Vertex AI

Additional resources

Gemini in Android Studio

Gemini in Android Studio is a coding companion for Android development. It's powered by artificial intelligence and can understand natural language. It helps you be more productive by answering your Android development queries. Gemini can help you find relevant resources, learn best practices, and save time.

Gemini API Starter template

The Gemini API Starter template closely follows the online quickstart for getting started with Gemini in Android. It leverages the Google AI client SDK for Android and shows how to work with text prompts and model responses.

Reference

Google APIs and SDKs for Gen AI on Android

Environment	API or SDK	Supported Model(s)	Availability	Recommended usage
Android integration with on-device inference	Google AI Edge SDK	Gemini Nano	Private preview	Recommended for production
Android integration with cloud inference	Google AI client SDK	Gemini 1.0 Pro Gemini 1.0 Pro Vision Gemini 1.5 Pro Gemini 1.5 Flash	Public preview	Use only for prototyping
	Vertex AI SDK for Firebase	Gemini 1.0 Pro Gemini 1.0 Pro Vision Gemini 1.5 Pro Gemini 1.5 Flash	Public preview	Recommended for production upon stable release
Backend integration with cloud inference	Vertex AI platform	130+ foundation models (including Gemini Pro models)	Generally available	Recommended for production
Android integration with on-device inference	MediaPipe LLM inference	Gemma 2B Falcon 1B Stable LM 3B Phi-2	Experimental

Google generative AI models

Google offers multiple generative AI models that you can use in your Android app.

Environment	Model	Type (Cost)	Supported input formats	Output data
On-device	Gemini Nano	Free	Text	Text
Cloud	Gemini 1.0 Pro	Free/Paid	Text	Text
	Gemini 1.0 Pro Vision	Free/Paid	Text, image	Text
	Gemini 1.5 Flash (Preview)	Free/Paid	Text, image	Text
	Gemini 1.5 Pro (Preview)	Free/Paid	Text, image, video, audio	Text
On-device, cloud	Gemma	Free (Open model)	Text	Text

For complete details on each model's capabilities, including token and rate limits, see Gemini models.