Replit and Google Cloud Partner to Advance Generative AI for Software Development

Leading cloud software development platform Replit announced a new strategic partnership with Google Cloud. Under the new partnership, Replit developers will get access to Google Cloud infrastructure, services, and foundation models via Ghostwriter, Replit’s software development AI, while Google Cloud and Workspace developers will get access to Replit’s collaborative code editing platform.

The collaboration will accelerate the creation of generative AI applications and underscores Google Cloud’s commitment to nurturing the most open ecosystem for generative AI. For Replit, already 20 million developers strong, this partnership with Google Cloud is its next move in realizing its mission to empower the next 1 billion software creators.

Coding with AI

AI is changing software development. For developers using Replit’s Ghostwriter coding AI, more than 30% of their code is generated by Ghostwriter. The newest LLM chat apps can generate code for full programs with simple natural language prompts, enabling the creation of full websites with no coding experience in minutes.

But even powerful LLMs can’t run code themselves. Standalone chat LLMs do not have a project’s context. They require developers to copy and paste code from where they work to the chat app. This leads to inefficient switching of tabs and requires additional prompting. Even then, the separate chat app won’t have the richness of knowing where in the coding tool the developer can achieve their goal and run their program.

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Until LLMs are brought into the integrated development environment itself (IDE), we aren’t yet at the future that Replit CEO Amjad Masad has laid out, where AI will help:

• Make non-developers into developers, turning natural language to code
• Turn software engineers to hyper-productive “10X engineers”
• Make 10X engineers 1000X engineers, coding complex-architected software in 1/1000th of the time.

So what’s next? How can developers get the full power of LLMs, end to end … fast? Enter Replit, powered by Google Cloud infrastructure and foundation models under this partnership.

From Idea to Live App in Seconds on Replit

At more than 20 million developers and more than 240 million repls (projects) created, Replit is one of the fastest-growing developer platforms. Replit’s cloud-based platform is unique as a place for AI:

• Deploy what the AI helped build: Developers can code in any language from their browser quickly because Replit caches more than 10 terabytes of packages. Powered by Google Cloud Platform, Replit developers can deploy and scale their applications with a few clicks and get Google Cloud’s leading reliability, security, and other benefits.
• AI built-in: Replit built its initial Ghostwriter coding AI agent last year. Since then, Replit has built and deployed a fully conversational AI directly in the IDE that has the context of the developer’s project.
• AI that debugs in real-time: Replit’s Ghostwriter has instant debugging capabilities that proactively help solve coding errors. This is an early example of the extended power of an AI agent.
• Monetization: Replit enables developers to earn money on-platform – through Replit Bounties where they can complete software jobs for others, directly from end users with APIs to Stripe and others, or from the support of the Replit community with tips of support. Replit’s Cycles currency gives developers globally a choice on how they earn.
• Community: With millions on the platform each month, Replit developers can share runnable applications with 20M other developers instantly.
• AI on mobile: Replit’s development environment is available on iOS and Android, allowing developers to code with an AI on their smartphones and tablets from anywhere in the world. No separate deployment or compilation needed. Users can speak with Ghostwriter to quickly build a full app.
• Collaborative: Developers can share AI sessions and code with others on their teams. AI is just another collaborator.

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Replit’s cloud infrastructure and AI products like Ghostwriter make it one of the fastest places to go from idea to deployed software application. Through this new partnership with Google Cloud, developers using Replit will have global access to Google Cloud infrastructure and Google’s foundation models on Vertex AI. The collaboration aims to support Google Cloud’s goal of enabling companies to accelerate their development process using AI.

Partnering in AI

Last fall, Replit developed and launched Ghostwriter in three months, starting with code autocompletion and transformation. In January 2023, Replit added a conversational AI interface for generating code and proactive debugging, with knowledge of the developer’s files and workspace.

“Our partnership with Google Cloud on infrastructure and AI is a clear step toward our mission of bringing the next billion software creators online. AI has changed software development forever. The seamless idea-to-deployed software experience that Replit provides developers will continue to set a new bar for software creation,” said Amjad Masad, the CEO and Head of Engineering at Replit. “We’re thrilled to build this.”

“Generative AI can bring significant new capabilities to businesses and developers, including the ability to easily, safely, and scalably create new software applications and online experiences with little or no coding experience,” said June Yang, VP, Cloud AI, and Industry Solutions at Google Cloud. “Google Cloud infrastructure and foundation models in Vertex AI will power Replit’s widely-adopted platform, delivering more performance and scalability to millions of developers around the world.”

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