Connect Gemini to Reduz.

Cleo uses Google AI Studio's free tier with her own Gemini key for the entire semester. Flash quality is excellent for study notes and the free quota covers her daily reading. Anya uses paid Gemini Pro for client briefs where she needs the longer context window. This guide walks through connecting your Google Gemini API key to Reduz so summaries go directly from your tab to Google Gemini. No Reduz server in the middle. Setup takes about two minutes once you have a key.

Setup steps

1. 1

   Create an API key in the Google AI Studio

   Open https://aistudio.google.com/apikey and sign in to your Google Gemini account. Click "Create new key" (label varies by provider) and copy the key value. Most provider keys start with "sk-" and are 30+ characters long. Treat the key like a password. Anyone with the key can spend on your account.

2. 2

   Install Reduz from the Chrome Web Store

   If you haven't already, install the Reduz extension from the Chrome Web Store. The extension runs entirely on your device and uses click-only access. It can only read a page when you click it.

3. 3

   Open Reduz extension settings

   Click the Reduz toolbar icon, then the settings gear. Scroll to the AI provider section. Each supported provider (OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Gemini, DeepSeek, xAI) has its own row with a key field and a model selector.

4. 4

   Select Your own AI key as the active mode

   In the mode chooser, select Your own AI key. This tells Reduz to use your provider key instead of free credits. You can switch back to free credits at any time without losing your saved keys.

5. 5

   Paste the Gemini key in the matching row

   Find the Gemini provider row in extension settings and paste your API key. Make sure you paste it into the Gemini row, not OpenAI or Anthropic. Keys in the wrong row will fail authentication. The key is stored in Chrome extension storage on your device and is never sent to a Reduz server.

6. 6

   Choose a Gemini model

   Pick the model variant from the dropdown. See the Model selection section below for recommendations on which model fits which workload.

7. 7

   Run the built-in connection test

   Click "Test connection" on the provider row. Reduz sends a tiny test request to validate that the key is active, the account has usable balance, and the selected model is available. Success means you're ready to summarize.

8. 8

   Summarize a non-sensitive source first

   For your first BYOK request, pick a public article or a YouTube video with captions. Confirm the output quality matches expectations and check the response time. Once you're comfortable, scale up to PDFs and longer sources.

Why bring your own Gemini key

Gemini is the most cost-competitive paid provider for summarization, and Google AI Studio offers a genuinely usable free tier, rare among major providers. Flash specifically is often pennies per long PDF, fast, and produces strong summaries. Using your own key means your prompts go directly from your tab to Google's API. The free tier accommodates casual-to-moderate daily summarization without billing. The paid tier (with billing enabled) unlocks 10-100x higher quotas at very low cost.

Model selection

Reduz defaults to Gemini 3 Flash for Google as the daily-volume balance. Fast, cheap, and good quality across articles, webpages, and PDFs. Gemini 3 Pro is the flagship for harder content where reasoning depth matters. Gemini 2.5 Flash Lite is the cheapest and fastest option, with the most generous free-tier quota.

Cost expectations

Google bills usage to your Google AI Studio account (free tier or with billing attached) or your Google Cloud project if you're using Vertex AI. A 3,000-word article summary on Flash runs fractions of a cent; a 30-page PDF on Pro runs single-digit cents. The free AI Studio tier is unusually generous for moderate use, roughly 1500 requests/day on Flash on the standard free quota. For tighter cost control on long PDFs and transcripts, use Reduz's content-limit setting to cap token usage per request.

Free tier availability

Google AI Studio offers a usable free tier, unlike OpenAI, Anthropic, DeepSeek, or xAI. The free quota on Gemini Flash is generous enough for casual daily summarization (50+ articles/day fits comfortably). To unlock 10-100x higher quotas, enable billing on the Google Cloud project tied to your AI Studio key. Even on the paid tier, Gemini Flash pricing is among the lowest in the category.

Privacy posture for source text

When you use your own AI key, your Gemini API key stays in Chrome extension storage on your device. Reduz never sees it. Source text goes directly from your tab to Google's API. The Reduz server is not in the request path. Google's AI Studio free tier policy permits use of free-tier prompts for model improvement; paid-tier (with billing attached) prompts are excluded from training by default. If your summary content is sensitive, enable billing or switch to a provider with an API-default no-training policy (OpenAI, Anthropic). For comparison, free credits send source text through Reduz (with an installation identifier for credit counting) to a hosted AI model. That is useful when you do not want to manage a provider key, but it is a different data path than using your own key.

Practical checklist

• Create the key at https://aistudio.google.com/apikey and copy it once. Most consoles only show full keys at creation time.
• Treat the key like a password. Do not paste it into shared documents, screenshots, or cloud notes.
• Paste the key into the Gemini row in Reduz extension settings, not into a different provider row.
• Switch to your own AI key mode before running the first request.
• Pick the Gemini model that fits your workload (see Model selection above).
• Run the connection test before summarizing real content.
• Summarize a non-sensitive source first to validate output quality and cost.
• Consider scoping the key to a small monthly budget at the provider for safety.

Frequently asked questions