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Call Gemini using the OpenAI Library

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Call Gemini using the OpenAI Library

Lab 1 hour universal_currency_alt 5 Credits show_chart Intermediate
info This lab may incorporate AI tools to support your learning.
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GSP1266

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Overview

Developers already working with OpenAI's libraries can easily tap into the power of Gemini by leveraging the Gemini Chat Completions API. The Gemini Chat Completions API offers a streamlined way to experiment with and incorporate Gemini's capabilities into your existing AI applications. Learn more about calling Gemini by using the OpenAI library. In this lab, you learn how to call Gemini using the OpenAI library.

Gemini

Gemini is a family of powerful generative AI models developed by Google DeepMind, capable of understanding and generating various forms of content, including text, code, images, audio, and video.

Gemini API in Vertex AI

The Gemini API in Vertex AI provides a unified interface for interacting with Gemini models. This allows developers to easily integrate these powerful AI capabilities into their applications. For the most up-to-date details and specific features of the latest versions, please refer to the official Gemini documentation.

Gemini Models

  • Gemini Pro: Designed for complex reasoning, including:
    • Analyzing and summarizing large amounts of information.
    • Sophisticated cross-modal reasoning (across text, code, images, etc.).
    • Effective problem-solving with complex codebases.
  • Gemini Flash: Optimized for speed and efficiency, offering:
    • Sub-second response times and high throughput.
    • High quality at a lower cost for a wide range of tasks.
    • Enhanced multimodal capabilities, including improved spatial understanding, new output modalities (text, audio, images), and native tool use (Google Search, code execution, and third-party functions).

Prerequisites

Before starting this lab, you should be familiar with:

  • Basic Python programming.
  • General API concepts.
  • Running Python code in a Jupyter notebook on Vertex AI Workbench.

Objectives

In this lab, you will learn how to:

  • Configure OpenAI SDK for the Gemini Chat Completions API
  • Send a chat completions request
  • Stream chat completions response
  • Send a multimodal request
  • Send a function calling request
  • Send a function calling request with the tool_choice parameter

Setup and requirements

Before you click the Start Lab button

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This hands-on lab lets you do the lab activities in a real cloud environment, not in a simulation or demo environment. It does so by giving you new, temporary credentials you use to sign in and access Google Cloud for the duration of the lab.

To complete this lab, you need:

  • Access to a standard internet browser (Chrome browser recommended).
Note: Use an Incognito (recommended) or private browser window to run this lab. This prevents conflicts between your personal account and the student account, which may cause extra charges incurred to your personal account.
  • Time to complete the lab—remember, once you start, you cannot pause a lab.
Note: Use only the student account for this lab. If you use a different Google Cloud account, you may incur charges to that account.

How to start your lab and sign in to the Google Cloud console

  1. Click the Start Lab button. If you need to pay for the lab, a dialog opens for you to select your payment method. On the left is the Lab Details pane with the following:

    • The Open Google Cloud console button
    • Time remaining
    • The temporary credentials that you must use for this lab
    • Other information, if needed, to step through this lab

  2. Click Open Google Cloud console (or right-click and select Open Link in Incognito Window if you are running the Chrome browser).

    The lab spins up resources, and then opens another tab that shows the Sign in page.

    Tip: Arrange the tabs in separate windows, side-by-side.

    Note: If you see the Choose an account dialog, click Use Another Account.

  3. If necessary, copy the Username below and paste it into the Sign in dialog.

    {{{user_0.username | "Username"}}}

    You can also find the Username in the Lab Details pane.

  4. Click Next.

  5. Copy the Password below and paste it into the Welcome dialog.

    {{{user_0.password | "Password"}}}

    You can also find the Password in the Lab Details pane.

  6. Click Next.

    Important: You must use the credentials the lab provides you. Do not use your Google Cloud account credentials. Note: Using your own Google Cloud account for this lab may incur extra charges.

  7. Click through the subsequent pages:

    • Accept the terms and conditions.
    • Do not add recovery options or two-factor authentication (because this is a temporary account).
    • Do not sign up for free trials.

After a few moments, the Google Cloud console opens in this tab.

Note: To access Google Cloud products and services, click the Navigation menu or type the service or product name in the Search field. Navigation menu icon and Search field

Task 1. Open the notebook in Vertex AI Workbench

  1. In the Google Cloud console, on the Navigation menu (Navigation menu icon), click Vertex AI > Workbench.

  2. Find the instance and click on the Open JupyterLab button.

The JupyterLab interface for your Workbench instance opens in a new browser tab.

Note: If you do not see notebooks in JupyterLab, please follow these additional steps to reset the instance:

1. Close the browser tab for JupyterLab, and return to the Workbench home page.

2. Select the checkbox next to the instance name, and click Reset.

3. After the Open JupyterLab button is enabled again, wait one minute, and then click Open JupyterLab.

Task 2. Set up the notebook

  1. Open the file.

  2. In the Select Kernel dialog, choose Python 3 from the list of available kernels.

  3. Run through the Getting Started and the Import libraries sections of the notebook.

    • For Project ID, use , and for Location, use .
Note: You can skip any notebook cells that are noted Colab only. If you experience a 429 response from any of the notebook cell executions, wait 1 minute before running the cell again to proceed. Note: you can skip any notebook cells that are noted Colab only.

Click Check my progress to verify the objective. Import libraries and set up the notebook.

Task 3. Chat Completions API examples

In this section, you will experiment with the Chat Completions API by sending different chat completion requests and streaming the chat completions response.

  1. Run the Chat completion examples section of the notebook.

Click Check my progress to verify the objective. Send a chat completions request.

Click Check my progress to verify the objective. Stream chat completions response.

Click Check my progress to verify the objective. Send a multimodal request.

Click Check my progress to verify the objective. Send a function calling request with the 'tool_choice' parameter.

Congratulations!

Congratulations! In this lab, you learned how to configure the OpenAI SDK to use the Gemini Chat Completions API. You learned how to use the API to send a chat completions request and how to stream the response as the model generates it. You also learned how to send a multimodal request and how to use the API for function calling.

Next steps / learn more

Check out the following resources to learn more about Gemini:

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Manual Last Updated July 15, 2025

Lab Last Tested July 15, 2025

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Use an Incognito or private browser window to run this lab. This prevents any conflicts between your personal account and the Student account, which may cause extra charges incurred to your personal account.