Why Google Code Assist may finally be the programming power tool you need

Google Code Assist now includes Gemini 2.5 in its free tier, but Google's press team left one crucial question unanswered: who exactly gets to use the new AI agents?

This year is not like last year. Yes, I know. Anyone who follows the news or buys eggs knows that this year is different. But I'm not talking globally. Instead, I'm talking about Google and its Gemini Code Assist announcements at the Google Next get-together.

Last year, I discussed Google Next 2024 announcement of its Google Code Assist AI programming helper. It offered a lot of interesting integration and productivity possibilities for programmers. But it was dogged by one irredeemable limitation: the Gemini implementation couldn't code its way out of a paper bag at the time.

When I ran my coding tests last year, Gemini Advanced, based on Gemini 1 ...