At Google I/O 2025, Google officially launched the public beta version of its new AI-powered coding assistant, ‘Jules’. This AI agent (first teased in December 2024) is designed to help programmers by automating repetitive coding tasks like bug fixes, feature development, documentation, and testing. The coding assistant is powered by Google’s latest Gemini 2.5 Pro model, which has been optimized for software engineering tasks.
Jules operates within a cloud-hosted virtual machine environment that runs Ubuntu Linux and includes a suite of popular developer tools, like Node.js, Python, Go, Java, and Rust. And this setup allows the agent to clone the user’s repository, install necessary dependencies, and modify files as needed.
One of Jules’s highlighted features is its ability to work asynchronously. It means that after submitting a task, developers can step away while Jules performs its work in the background, sending progress updates via browser notifications or through its interface.
Even this new tool aims to streamline the developer workflow by integrating deeply with GitHub. Once connected to a GitHub account, users can select which repositories and branches they want Jules to work on. The agent breaks down complex tasks into manageable steps, generates a plan for code changes, and runs unit tests to validate its work before creating a pull request. Users can review and approve the proposed changes through a simple interface.
Meanwhile, during the I/O 2025 conferences, the tech titan again highlighted that its coding agent respects user privacy by not training on private repositories. Additionally, Jules offers an audio summary of the modifications it makes to help developers quickly grasp the changes without searching through lines of code. This feature is similar to what Google’s NotebookLM already offers.
In terms of availability, Jules has so far been part of Google Labs and was free to use during the beta period. Now, the tech giant has announced the release of its public beta, meaning anyone can sign up and try the tool.
This release puts Google in direct competition with OpenAI’s Codex and GitHub Copilot. Notably, OpenAI’s Codex recently became available to ChatGPT Pro, Team, and Enterprise subscribers at a premium price. Codex is powered by OpenAI’s codex-1 model, a variant fine-tuned specifically for programming. Meanwhile, GitHub Copilot (powered by generative AI models developed by GitHub, OpenAI, and Microsoft) integrates directly into popular code editors to provide real-time code completions and suggestions.
There are several other free AI code assistants already on the market, including Tabnine, Replit, Codeium, DeepCode, AlphaCode, IntelliCode, Amazon Q Developer (with a free tier), and CodeWP. The latest Google move becomes noteworthy as the global AI code tools market was valued at around $4.86 billion in 2023 and is projected to reach $26.03 billion by 2030, growing at a CAGR of 27.1%.
Content originally published on The Tech Media – Global technology news, latest gadget news and breaking tech news.
