I am developing React Apps in AI Studio that will be deployed to my own servers. These apps will use Gemini and Imagen functionality and thus need an API key to work properly. So in the past I would have a Settings dialog with a field for the user to provide their own API Key. But this doesn’t work in AI Studio any more because the AI is now claiming this is prohibited.
But if I deploy my apps with my own key, then I go bankrupt because of all the requests that could be generated by users from all over the Internet. This is unacceptable for me. So I need a function that will allow users to set their own API key for each app. Thus they will use their own budget but not mine.
Right now, AI Studio seems to have an alternate solution that adds an overlay to set the API key within AI Studio. Which would be fine if my apps were used in AI Studio. But that’s not the case. They need to run on my private Ubuntu server where they are deployed using NPM. This worked well for my past apps. But now it fails as it will try to handle the API key through AI Studio.
So, this feature is critical for my own apps to deploy them. Without this, the whole AI Studio becomes useless to me. So please allow apps to ask for the API key or find a better mechanism that will work for deployed apps on personal servers.
Apology for the delayed response!!
Thank you for your feedback. We appreciate you taking the time to share your thoughts with us, and we’ll be filing a feature request.
To help us prioritize this request effectively, any additional details you can provide regarding the impact this feature would have would be very helpful.
yes this should be an automatic feature, the devs cannot be expected to take up the costs when a public app is shared all over the internet. We make some fantastic tools, by allowing users to input their own key will allow user to collect far more revenue as it would bot just be the devs using the popular tools.
A simple dialog box that asks for the API key and stores it in local storage. Two more tab pages, one to select the Gemini model and another to select an Imagen model. The key is used for both services.
Now, I have this app (and a few others like it) running on my personal server with no problems at all. And it allows everyone on this planet to use it, as long as they use their own API key. After all, I might make something useful and end up with a million users who use it for free. Well, I can hope…
But I don’t want to pay for the AI usage, as I would go broke. This server I have is just a simple computer with a fixed IP address. Costs for maintenance are mostly the power and broadband, and those costs aren’t high. And I’m not charging anyone for the use of my apps. I don’t even have any ad revenue or whatever from these apps I make. Because I just like making things.
So, for me this is an absolute requirement for making apps that need an API key. It would be a nice feature when visitors have an alternate way to connect their API key or even have a way to get an API key through some Google page or whatever.
As any app that uses Gemini/Imagen will require an API Key in order to work properly, a basic solution to provide one would be welcome. Without such a solution, AI Studio loses it’s value for me.
