Gemini

Gemini is Google's native multimodal model. Uniquely, it accepts video and huge context (2M+ tokens) natively. 2025 sees Gemini 2.0/3.0.

When to Use

• Massive Context: "Here is a 1-hour video. Find the timestamp where..."
• Multimodal Live: Real-time voice/video interaction.
• Google Ecosystem: Integrated with Vertex AI, Search (Grounding), and Workspace.

Core Concepts

Models

• Pro: The best all-rounder.
• Flash: Extremely fast and cheap. High throughput.
• Ultra: The largest reasoning model.

Grounding

Connects the model to Google Search to provide citations and up-to-date info.

Context Initial Caching

Cache the context (e.g., a massive manual) to reduce cost/latency on subsequent queries.

Best Practices (2025)

Do:

• Use Flash for RAG: 2.0 Flash is smart enough for most RAG & cheaper/faster.
• Use Grounding: Eliminate hallucinations by enforcing "Google Search" grounding.
• Upload Video: Don't transcribe video manually; Gemini watches it.

Don't:

• Don't confuse with PaLM: Gemini replaced PaLM 2 completely.

References

• Gemini API Documentation