The Gemini API has quietly addressed a major friction point for enterprise adoption: data ingestion. New updates fundamentally shift the API's file handling from an ephemeral prototyping tool to a robust, production-scale pipeline, supporting direct registration of files from major cloud storage providers. This move signals Google's intent to compete directly for multimodal enterprise workloads that rely on existing, persistent data lakes. The previous 48-hour file expiration window was a non-starter for serious applications, but that bottleneck has now been removed.
Previously, developers using large files (video, long audio, massive documents) were forced to upload them to the Files API, where they persisted for only two days. Now, the API supports direct registration of Google Cloud Storage (GCS) objects, eliminating the need to move bytes within the Google ecosystem for GCP users. Crucially, this functionality extends beyond GCP, allowing developers to use signed URLs to access data securely from competing platforms like AWS S3 and Azure Blob Storage. This multi-cloud compatibility is a necessary feature for any API targeting large-scale enterprise integration.
The support for external and signed URLs is perhaps the most significant architectural change for Gemini API data ingestion. By allowing the API to securely fetch content during processing, Google removes the common developer burden of downloading massive files to a backend server just to forward them to the API. This reduces latency, cuts down on unnecessary egress costs for the developer, and streamlines the architecture for high-volume multimodal processing. It transforms the developer experience from managing temporary uploads to simply pointing the API toward the source of truth.
Scaling Multimodal Workloads
While the focus is on external storage, the quadrupling of the inline file size limit—from 20MB to 100MB—is a welcome quality-of-life improvement. This increase caters specifically to developers focused on rapid iteration and real-time use cases, allowing them to handle significantly larger images or short, high-fidelity audio clips without the overhead of registering files. According to the announcement, this is ideal for faster prototyping and simpler integration paths, particularly for developers who prefer base64 encoding for speed and simplicity. This 100MB limit provides immediate utility for applications that do not require persistent storage but need to handle substantial single payloads.
These updates transform the Gemini API data ingestion story from a temporary solution into a permanent, flexible toolkit. By prioritizing persistent storage integration and multi-cloud compatibility, Google is making a necessary concession to enterprise reality, where data rarely resides in a single, convenient location. This flexibility is essential for driving adoption among large organizations looking to integrate multimodal AI without costly data migration projects. The shift from ephemeral storage to direct registration marks the Gemini API's maturation into a serious contender for production-grade AI infrastructure.
