Use Gemini Cloud Assist in the Google Cloud console

Preview

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This document describes how to get AI-powered assistance from the Cloud Assist pane in the Google Cloud console.

The Cloud Assist pane lets you write natural language statements or questions (called prompts) to get in-depth explanations, suggested actions, or guided workflows that help you complete tasks quickly and efficiently without needing to be a cloud expert.

Learn how and when Gemini for Google Cloud uses your data.

Before you begin

1. In the Google Cloud console, on the project selector page, select or create a Google Cloud project.

   Note: If you don't plan to keep the resources that you create in this procedure, create a project instead of selecting an existing project. After you finish these steps, you can delete the project, removing all resources associated with the project.

   Go to project selector

2. Ensure that Gemini Cloud Assist is set up for your Google Cloud project.

Open and close the Cloud Assist pane

1. In the Google Cloud console, go to any page—for example, the Dashboard page.

   Go to Dashboard

2. In the Google Cloud console toolbar, click spark Open or close Gemini AI chat.

   The Cloud Assist pane opens. You can click example prompts if they are displayed, or you can enter a prompt in the Enter a prompt field.

You can manage the Cloud Assist pane in several ways:

• To expand the Cloud Assist pane to the full width of your browser window, click open_in_new Open in full page.

  The Cloud Assist pane opens in a new tab. Your original session remains open in the original tab. To close the expanded view, close the tab.

• To close the Cloud Assist pane, click spark Open or close Gemini AI chat. If you don't choose to turn on conversation history, your conversation history remains active until you change projects or sign out of the Google Cloud console. To re-open the Cloud Assist pane, click spark Open or close Gemini AI chat.

Enter a prompt in the Cloud Assist pane

As an early-stage technology, Gemini for Google Cloud products can generate output that seems plausible but is factually incorrect, especially when issuing the write Data Manipulation Language (DML) or Data Definition Language (DDL) operations. We recommend that you validate all output from Gemini for Google Cloud products before you use it. For more information, see Gemini for Google Cloud and responsible AI.

1. In the Google Cloud console, go to any page—for example, the Dashboard page.

   Go to Dashboard

2. In the Google Cloud console toolbar, click spark Open or close Gemini AI chat.

3. In the Cloud Assist pane, in the Enter a prompt field, enter the following prompt, and then click send Send prompt:

   Create a gcloud command to give the developer Google group
   access to view my Google Cloud project.
   

   In the Cloud Assist pane, a response is displayed.

4. In the Enter a prompt field, send a follow-up prompt:

   Change that to editor access.
   

   Gemini Cloud Assist uses your conversation history for additional context when it responds to your prompts. For example, Gemini responds with an updated explanation and command.

5. Optional: If the Show related content link is visible, click the link to access more information. The link is only displayed when more information is available.

Try more examples

In the following examples, you learn how to get information about various Google Cloud products by entering prompts in the Cloud Assist pane.

• To learn about the differences between similar products, enter a prompt that's similar to the following:

  Should I use GKE or Cloud Run for my
  application?
  

• To learn how Google Cloud can help you develop a computer vision app using unlabelled training data, enter a prompt that's similar to the following:

  I'm interested in developing a computer vision application. I have a lot of
  unlabelled training data sitting in my Google Drive and I'm not sure how to
  get started. What are the first steps I should take to develop an image
  recognition service with this data?
  

• To learn about a log entry in Logs Explorer, you can click a button on a log entry that opens the Cloud Assist pane with a bulleted summary of the events in the log. For more information, see Summarize log entries with Gemini assistance.

For information, see Write better prompts for Gemini for Google Cloud.

View and manage conversation history

You can keep a history of your conversations in the Cloud Assist pane and view them later. If you don't turn on conversation history, the history automatically resets when you change projects or sign out of the Google Cloud console.

Turn on conversation history

1. In the Google Cloud console, go to any page—for example, the Dashboard page.

   Go to Dashboard

2. In the Google Cloud console toolbar, click spark Open or close Gemini AI chat.

3. In the Cloud Assist pane, click View conversation history, and then click Enable chat history.

4. To confirm, click Enable chat history.

   The Recent chats pane opens. To return to the main Cloud Assist pane, click Back to conversation.

View a conversation in the history

1. In the Cloud Assist pane, click More actions, and then click Conversations.

   The Recent chats pane opens, displaying any saved conversations.

2. To view a conversation, click the conversation.

3. Optional: To manage a single conversation, next to the conversation title, click More actions, and then do one of the following:

   • To delete the conversation, click Delete chat.
   • To rename the conversation, click Rename chat.

Delete conversation history

If your chat history is no longer relevant to what you're trying to do, then you can reset the chat history by deleting all the conversations:

1. In the Cloud Assist pane, click More actions, and then click Conversations.

   The Recent chats pane opens, displaying any saved conversations.

2. To delete all conversations, in the Cloud Assist pane, click More actions, and then click Delete all.

3. To confirm, click Delete all.

If you haven't turned on conversation history, you can reset your present session in the Cloud Assist pane by doing one of the following:

• Change your Google Cloud project.
• Sign out of the Google Cloud console.

Turn off conversation history

1. In the Cloud Assist pane, click More actions, and then click Conversations.
2. In the Recent chats pane, click More actions, and then click Disable chat history.
3. To confirm, click Disable chat history.

Get conversational assistance outside of the console

To use the Cloud Assist pane in an integrated development environment (IDE) instead of the Google Cloud console, you must first install the Cloud Code plugin in your IDE.

• To chat with Gemini in your IDE, click spark Open or close Gemini AI chat.

  The Gemini Cloud Assist conversational assistant in an IDE works the same way as it does in the Google Cloud console.

What's next

• For more examples and suggestions to help you create your own prompts, see Write better prompts for Gemini for Google Cloud.
• To discover other ways to get Gemini assistance, see Gemini for Google Cloud overview.