Google releases a new AI-powered coding bot for Android developers. During its I/O event on Wednesday, Google announced that the tool, called Studio Bot, will help developers build apps by building code, fixing bugs, and answering questions about Android.
According to Google, the bot is built on Codey, the company’s new foundational coding model that stems from the updated PaLM 2 Language Large Model (LLM). The Studio Bot supports both Kotlin and Java programming languages and will live directly in the toolbar on Android Studio. There, developers can get quick answers to their questions or even have a bot debug a piece of their code.
Screenshot: Emma Roth/The Verge
While Google notes that developers do not need to share their source code with Google in order to use the Studio Bot, the company will receive data about the conversations they had with the tool. Google says the bot is still in its “very early days” but it will continue to train it to improve its answers. It’s also currently only available to developers in the US at the moment via the Canary channel, and there’s no word on when it will see a global launch.
The new AI-powered encoder comes as part of Google’s ongoing push into AI. After making chatbot Bard available as early as March, Google has gradually added new features, including the ability to create, debug, and annotate lines of code. Bundling these features into a standalone coding assistant pits Google against Microsoft and Amazon, both of which have their own AI-powered coding tools that developers can integrate into a variety of integrated development environments (IDE).
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