Google Gemini integration
Two things make Gemini the right answer rather than a preference. The input is not text, so photographs, scans, audio and video go in as they arrive. Or the estate already runs on Google Cloud, and the real question is which account and which region your data ends up in.
01Capabilities
Four things that get simpler inside a Google estate
Gemini is a model family from Google, so this page is model-selection judgement rather than a claim about tooling we install. Wiring one into a product is AI integration work, and the four situations below are where it tends to be the technically correct pick rather than a preference.
- Pictures
Files that are images, not documents
Condition and damage photographs in logistics, listing photos and walkthrough video in real estate. The model reads them directly, which removes a separate conversion step and every error that step used to introduce.
- Estate
The model inside the project you already own
Consumed through Google's enterprise entry point, inside your own project, with your own access rules, your own region and your own audit trail, next to data that already lives in Google Cloud. For many buyers that answers the security review on its own.
- Everything
Reading a document set in one go
Useful for a one-off analysis where building a search layer would cost more than simply sending everything. We price that against a search design rather than assuming the bigger window wins, because at volume it usually does not.
- Bulk
Cheap tiers for the easy half
The lighter, faster members of the family are priced for sorting, tagging and summarising at scale, where the task is straightforward and the volume is large. Using a frontier model there is an expensive way to be very slightly more right.
02Fit
Which door you come in through, and what it commits you to
Gemini has two advantages that survive any amount of leaderboard churn: it takes pictures, sound and video directly, and through Google's enterprise entry point it sits inside a project you already control. Against that, it pulls you towards one cloud's identity and billing, and the family moves fast enough that pinning a version is not optional. Four of the six rows below end somewhere other than a Gemini project with us.
| Your situation | What we recommend |
|---|---|
| Photographs, scans, audio or video are the main input | Use GeminiRemoving a separate conversion stage removes a whole class of failure, not just a step in a diagram. Test it on your worst files, not your cleanest. |
| You run on Google Cloud and the model has to stay in your project and region | Use the enterprise entry pointThis is a data-governance answer that happens to also be a model answer, and it is usually the reason the decision was made at all. |
| No Google Cloud anywhere, a small team, and a deadline | Do not adopt a cloudTaking on a cloud in order to take on a model is a large decision hiding inside a small one. Start at the OpenAI API instead. |
| You are building in the free developer tool and about to show customers | Move before you launchThe two ways in carry different terms about your data. Discovering that during a security review is a delay you can simply decline to have. |
| Nothing may reach a third party at all, region or no region | Different pageChoosing a region is not the same as choosing your own building. That is Llama or Qwen on hardware you control. |
| One narrow judgement, made constantly, on clean text you already hold | Something smallerA cheaper model, see DeepSeek, or one small model trained for that single job, see PyTorch. |
Scope
What we own on Gemini work is that fourth row in particular: which way in you use, and what its terms say about your data. Alongside it, the test run on your worst real inputs rather than clean samples, the cost comparison between sending whole files and building a search layer, a pinned model version, and a non-Google fallback wired behind the same interface. unicrew has been building software since 2012, with 100+ senior in-house engineers across six countries, under an ISO 27001:2022 certified information-security management system. Where a smaller or cheaper model does the job, that is what you will hear.
03Delivery
Deciding the deployment before writing any code
The order here is unusual on purpose. On this provider the deployment decision comes first, because it decides what you are allowed to send and therefore what you are allowed to build.
- Choose the way in, and write down whyThe free developer tool and the enterprise path are not interchangeable for a business. They differ on what happens to your content, on regional control and on the terms your legal team signs. Choose deliberately, because a reviewer will ask.
- Prove the picture-reading on your worst inputsSkewed phone photos, dark video, faxed scans, forms filled in by hand. Models that read images look extraordinary on clean samples, and your production inputs are not clean samples.
- Price whole files against a search layerSending an entire document set is simple to build and not free to run at scale. We cost both designs before choosing, because the elegant version is often the expensive one and the difference only shows up at volume.
- Pin the version and keep the fallback testedPin the model version, alert on latency and errors, and keep a second provider behind the same interface with the test suite passing against it. A fast-moving family rewards this and punishes the opposite. It goes through the same QA and test automation practice we use on our own builds.
04Stack
What else is already in a Google-shaped estate
The pieces that turn up in the same projects, each with its own page if that is the decision you are actually making.
05Questions
Asked by a security reviewer looking at Google
Six that come up before a model is allowed near customer data, answered the way we would answer them live.
Yes, and here the valuable part is usually the decision about which way in you use and what happens to your data, rather than the calls themselves. What we will not do is hand over people and leave that decision unowned, because it determines what your legal team has to sign. An architect outside the delivery team reviews the design, and behaviour is covered by our AI QA and evaluation practice.
It depends which way in you came, which is the single most important practical fact about this provider. The free developer tier and the enterprise path differ on retention and on whether content can be used to improve the service. For anything with customer data we use the enterprise path inside your own project, choose the region deliberately, and keep the terms on file. We also strip identifiers the task does not need.
For a one-off analysis, yes, and it saves a great deal of engineering. As a permanent design, usually not. You pay for every word on every call, the wait grows with the input, and material buried in the middle gets less attention than people expect. Use it to get something working quickly, then measure a proper search layer against it before the volume arrives.
It depends what kind of document. If they arrive as scans, photographs or files where the layout carries meaning, Gemini reads them directly and you skip a conversion stage that adds its own errors. If they are already text and the difficulty is following a long list of rules, Claude is where we would start. Run both against the same test set, because this one genuinely flips by corpus.
A scoping call with an engineer, and for picture work we ask for a handful of your worst real inputs beforehand rather than the tidy ones. Those decide the answer. You get back a written view on feasibility, the deployment and data-handling recommendation, and the cost at your expected volume. Most engagements start within two to four weeks, so the answer on the call will be specific.
Three shapes, and which fits depends on how settled the scope is. Time and materials is billed hourly and quoted per project, which suits work still moving. Fixed price is outcome based, offered once the first read is done, because a fixed number on a system nobody has opened is a guess with a contract around it. Team extension is billed monthly per engineer. The rate depends on the seniority mix, so it is quoted rather than listed.
Working with photographs, scans or video?
Send us a handful of your genuinely awkward files and tell us what you need out of them. You will get an engineer's read on whether a model handles it, what it costs at your volume, and which way in your reviewers will accept.