Stack Overflow and Google Cloud partner to share AI benefits.

StackOverflow, the developer question-answer forum, is partnering with Google Cloud to integrate its massive data store with Google’s AI tools. Both of the “once-giants” are trying to get back developer attention with this move.

What’s going on here?

Stack Overflow and Google Cloud are partnering up to share AI resources.

What does this mean?

StackOverflow is moving to Google Cloud for hosting and will use Google’s Vertex AI to build new AI features on its platform. My dev friends have been ditching the platform since ChatGPT came along.

On the flip side, Stack Overflow's massive knowledge base is being plugged into Google's AI magic. There’s no mention of training on this data. Gemini for Google Cloud will highlight answers (code snippets and instructive bits) from StackOverflow’s API. Developers could also use StackOverflow in Google Cloud’s native console—much like a traditional cross-app integration.

These features will be available in mid-2024 and there will be some sneak peek in April during Google Cloud Next.

Why should I care?

Developers are still the early adopters and front-facing audience for LLMs. Google might not need to train on the code data to be a helpful tool for developers. The way we are seeing Gemini Pro 1.5 demos on Twitter, just pulling massive amounts of related answers from StackOverflow’s data and putting them into the model’s context might be enough to create better code.

This partnership might not be about Google’s plan to create a better coding/reasoning model. Instead, they might be going for a GitHub Copilot like product. The move plays into both platforms’s strengths: Google’s search and StackOverflow’s human-driven knowledge.