Bringing Gemini to Android: Exploring Integration Methods

Interested in bringing the advanced capabilities of Gemini models to your Android apps? This tutorial provides a comprehensive overview of the different strategies available for integration. We will delve into three primary methods that empower your Android applications with Gemini’s intelligence:

1. Making direct REST API HTTP POST requests
2. Leveraging the Google AI SDK for Android
3. Utilizing the streamlined integration offered by the Firebase Vertex AI SDK

Rest API

You can do a simple /POST request to use Gemini model. You need to create a Gemini API Key and added to the HTTP /POST request.Gemini AI SDK [doc].

Example url request: https://ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/quickstart?lang=rest

https://generativelanguage.googleapis.com/v1beta/models/gemini-2.0-flash:generateContent?key={$apiKey}

HTTP request using Ktor

    private val client = PlatformHttpClient().createHttpClient()

    /**
     * Sends a prompt to the Gemini AI model and retrieves the generated response.
     *
     * This function sends a POST request to the Gemini API with the provided prompt.
     * It then attempts to parse the JSON response from the API into a `GeminiResponse` object.
     * If successful, it extracts the text from the first candidate's first part and returns it.
     * If the response cannot be parsed or if no text is…