Getting started with the Gemini Interactions API

2026-06-23 · Source: philschmid.de - RSS feed · Field: Technology & Digital — Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning, Software Development & Engineering · Depth: Novice, medium

Summary

Google's Gemini Interactions API serves as the primary interface for Gemini models and agents, consolidating diverse functionalities into a single endpoint. This guide demonstrates its use via JavaScript, starting with API key creation from Google AI Studio and SDK installation (`npm install @google/genai`). The API supports core text generation using models like "gemini-3.5-flash", streaming responses, and managing multi-turn conversations by chaining `previous_interaction_id`. It also facilitates multimodal understanding for images, audio, video, and documents, alongside image generation with Nano Banana 2 via "gemini-3.1-flash-image". Advanced features include structured JSON output, integration with built-in tools like Google Search, and custom function calling. Furthermore, the API enables managed agent execution in remote sandboxes and background processing for long-running tasks, with results polled asynchronously.

Key takeaway

For AI Engineers or Software Engineers integrating Gemini models, the Interactions API simplifies development by consolidating diverse functionalities into one interface. You can rapidly prototype applications requiring text generation, multimodal input, or tool use without managing multiple APIs. Consider utilizing server-side history for multi-turn conversations and background execution for long-running tasks to optimize your application's responsiveness and complexity.

Key insights

The Gemini Interactions API unifies diverse AI capabilities, from text generation to multimodal understanding and agent execution, into a single, flexible endpoint.

Principles

• Unify AI tasks via a single endpoint.
• Server-side history simplifies multi-turn.
• Ground responses with real-time tools.

Method

Obtain an API key, install the `@google/genai` SDK, then use `ai.interactions.create` with specified `model` and `input` parameters. For advanced features, add `stream: true`, `previous_interaction_id`, `tools`, or `response_format`.

In practice

• Use "gemini-3.5-flash" for text.
• Add `stream: true` for real-time output.
• Pass `previous_interaction_id` for chat.

Topics

• Gemini Interactions API
• JavaScript SDK
• Multimodal AI
• Function Calling
• Managed Agents
• Structured Output

Best for: AI Engineer, Software Engineer, AI Student

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