Jules, our asynchronous coding agent
78 comments
·August 6, 2025turblety
coredog64
> Then of course, this Google AI gives me YouTube Premium for some reason (no idea how that's related to anything).
One of the common tests I've seen for the Google models specifically is understanding of YT videos: Summarization, transcription, diarization, etc. One of their APIs allows you to provide a YT video ID rather than making you responsible for downloading the content yourself.
gman83
I was wondering about this too, and apparently they're working on integrating it, so the Google AI Pro/Ultra subscriptions will also give API/CLI credits or something -- https://github.com/google-gemini/gemini-cli/issues/1427
esafak
The daily task limit went down from 60 to 15 with this release. Personally I wasn't close to exhausting the limit because I had to spend time fixing its code.
To communicate with the Jules team join https://discord.gg/googlelabs
purpleidea
I've been playing with it, and I've been generally not impressed.
There are both obvious annoying UI bugs (which should be easy to fix unless they vibe coded the whole thing) and the output of the tool isn't very good for anything but the simplest problems.
If the model was really good, I'd love this, but it's not.
ramoz
There is only one true agent in 2025, Claude Code.
That said, Gemini is very powerful for it's quality long-context capabilities: https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeAI/comments/1miweuv/comment/n...
natch
Why is the pricing so well hidden? I had to ask Grok. Google would not show even the overview page unless I click-to-agree to all their terms and conditions.
OK found a good page for the plans here… ymmv if you're not logged in:
rvnx
It should be illegal to say "> Highest task limits" or change them retroactively like Claude or Cursor did
null
mvieira38
Good to see competition for Codex. I think cloud-based async agents like Codex and Jules are superior to the Claude Code/Aider/Cursor style of local integration. It's much safer to have them completely isolated from your own machine, and the loop of sending them commands, doing your own thing on your PC and then checking back whenever is way better than having to set up git worktrees or any other type of sandbox yourself
agentastic
Codex/Jules are taking a very different approach than CC/Curser,
There used to be this thesis in software of [Cathedral vs Bazaar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cathedral_and_the_Bazaar), the modern version of it is you either 1) build your own cathedral, and you bring the user to your house. It is a more controlled environment, deployment is easier, but also the upside is more limited and also shows the model can't perform out-of-distribution. OpenAI has taken this approach for all of its agentic offering, whether ChatGPT Agent or Codex.
2) the alternative is Bazaar, where you bring the agent to the user, and let it interact with 1000 different apps/things/variables in their environment. It is 100x more difficult to pull this off, and you need better model that are more adaptable. But payoff is higher. The issues that you raised (env setup/config/etc) are temporary and fixable.
throwup238
Cursor now has “Background Agents” which do the same thing as Codex/Jules.
vb-8448
It's safer them have them completely isolated, but it's slower and more expensive.
Sometimes I just realize that CC going nuts and stop it before it goes too far (and consume too much). With this async setup, you may come after a couple of hours and see utter madness(and millions of tokens burned).
xiphias2
I agree but I just love codex-1 model that is powering codex and see pro 2.5 as inferior.
It's interesting that most people seem to prefer local code, I love that it allows me to code from my mobile phone while on the road.
mattnewton
Getting the environment set up in the cloud is a pain vs just running in your environment imo. I think we’ll probably see both for the foreseeable future but I am betting on the worse-is-better of cli tools and ide integrations winning over the next 2 years.
mvieira38
It took me like half an afternoon to get set up for my workplace's monorepo, but our stack is pretty much just Python and MongoDB so I guess that's easier. I agree, it's a significant trade-off, it just enables a very convenient workflow once it's done, and stuff like having it make 4 different versions with no speed loss is mind-blowing.
One nice perk on the ChatGPT Team and Enterprise plans is that Codex environments can be shared, so my work setting this up saved my coworkers a bunch of time. I pretty much just showed how it worked to my buddy and he got going instantly
drdrey
with something like github copilot coding agent it's really not, the environment setup is just like github actions
MattGaiser
It’s surprisingly good. If you try Copilot in GitHub, it has had no issues setting up temporary environments every single time in my case.
No special environment instructions required.
UncleOxidant
What does it mean by "asynchronous coding agent" exactly? They don't go into any details there. Like how does this differ from Gemini CLI? Is this more of a pass a high level idea to it and then go on vacation sort of thing? If so, I don't see how that can't end badly.
nemomarx
give high level user stories to it > it writes code and tests and etc for several hours > returns to you when it thinks it's done for you to review a pull request or etc
UncleOxidant
I'm afraid that's a hard nope. Gemini CLI is already doing stuff I don't want it to unless I'm very careful to keep it on a short leash.
SchizoDuckie
Who in their right mind hands off tasks to one of these for their day job? They can never be trusted.
esafak
You have to review their work, the same as any human's. What's the matter, you don't like cheap assistants?
munificent
> What's the matter, you don't like cheap assistants?
I think the main reason I'm not personally excited about AI is that... no, I don't, actually.
I'm in my late 40s. I have had many opportunities to move into management. I haven't because while I enjoy working with others, I derive the most satisfaction from feeling like I'm getting my hands dirty and doing work myself.
Spending the entire day doing code reviews of my army of minions might be strictly more productive, but it's not a job I would enjoy having. I have never, for a second, felt some sort of ambitious impulse to move up the org chart and become some sort of executive giving marching orders.
The world that AI boosters are driving towards seems to me to be one where the only human jobs left are effectively middle management where the leaf nodes of the org chart are all machines. It may the case that such a world has greater net productivity and the stock prices will go up.
But it's not a world that feels meaningful, dignified, or desirable to me.
esafak
You could consider yourself liberated to concentrate on higher level concerns like architecture and API/product design.
lbrito
I feel exactly this but I'm in my mid 30s. You're lucky in the sense that you probably have a longer career and may be able to retire.
vb-8448
They will produce PR(and probably shitty code) on a rate you are not able to review XD
lbrito
There will likely be another agent to review the PRs and make questionable choices :D
esafak
And it often does! When I don't like its work I provide stricter instructions and repeat if I think it will succeed.
All told, I still end up ahead.
SchizoDuckie
I can trust humans to do as I ask.
percentcer
Assistants can be taught
esafak
And these models simply get upgraded. Continual vs punctuated improvement :)
ActionHank
They can be great for focused tasks with very specific acceptance criteria. Especially in cases where you have broad test coverage that can verify nothing broke.
We already see bots that monitor repos to bump versions. I suspect we will see this expand to handle larger version bumps, minor issues, minor features. Basically junior dev learning tasks.
SchizoDuckie
Great. So Junior devs will be useless now. Now how are we going to train more senior devs that know what they're doing?
seunosewa
They will train themselves by doing open source projects with AI.
alex_suzuki
No need. In a year, senior devs will be useless as well. </sarcasm>
brap
I’m sorry but how is that any of your business?
If a company prefers small teams right now, at the cost of not having juniors to grow into seniors in the future, they are well within their rights to make that decision.
Might be an awful decision, might be a smart one, in any case there is no “we” here.
ianandrich
Thats the neat part. We won't.
midnitewarrior
I really appreciate your optimism about a future world where you expect senior devs will be needed. How do we get the tech bros to share your vision for the future?
theusus
Used it didn't like it. Claude Code is far better because the active collaboration part.
mvieira38
Different use cases, IMO. With a cloud solution like this it's much easier to ask it to solve whatever issues or backlog tasks you have and continue working on your own on your main project. I don't think this is a solution for vibecoding or for the AI copilot crowd
throwup238
It is also great for on the go when you only have a phone. I frequently fire off agents when I get a new idea or some backlog I want to tackle while I’m the gym - the 2 minute rest periods between sets is perfect to write up a prompt or review some changes.
r0fl
I thought I would like it based on the pitch but gave up using it after just a handful of times
Liking kiro a lot these days
beefnugs
So are there just 100 developers sitting in the edge of their seats constantly refreshing all the spy reports from other AI companies, waiting to copy the exact same idea and shit it out at top speed?
Or is it more of a vibe code thing where every new feature from everyone is recreated by every other company in a matter of days?
Do they even realize they are destroying their own industry economics? The only reason anyone uses big tech is because there are no alternatives
byefruit
How is this different from https://github.com/google-gemini/gemini-cli ?
Edit: it seems this is a hosted version. Would be nice if they actually joined up some of their products.
mattnewton
Idk, I think this is easier to talk about than “codex” by open ai which means either means the cli or the web interface to an agent with its own computer.
(Or a deprecated code fine tuned model)
esafak
Being hosted, it does not have access to your development environment. Its Ubuntu sandbox is quite restricted. https://jules.google/docs/environment/
dvngnt_
How long do we think it will take for google to rename this like the did from Bard > Gemini
Retr0id
> over 140,000 code improvements shared publicly.
Where can I check them out?
Why has Google totally overcomplicated their subscription models?
Looking at "Google AI Ultra" it looks like I get this Jules thing, Gemini App, Notebook, etc. But if I want Gemini CLI, then I've got to go through the GCP hellscape of trying to create subscriptions, billing accounts then buying Google Code Assist or something, but then I can't get the Gemini app.
Then of course, this Google AI gives me YouTube Premium for some reason (no idea how that's related to anything).