Last refreshed 2026-05-11. Next refresh: weekly.
Why use Chat Bison on GCP Vertex AI?
GCP Vertex AI offers Chat Bison with pay-as-you-go pricing at $0.50/1M input tokens. Vertex AI is Google Cloud's managed AI platform, offering access to Gemini models and hundreds of partner models alongside tools for fine-tuning, grounding, vector search, and end-to-end MLOps pipelines.
Setup recipe
Python + curlpip install google-cloud-aiplatformexport GOOGLE_CLOUD_PROJECT=...import os
import vertexai
from vertexai.generative_models import GenerativeModel
vertexai.init(project=os.environ["GOOGLE_CLOUD_PROJECT"], location="us-central1")chat-bison-001Request example
import os
import vertexai
from vertexai.generative_models import GenerativeModel
# Reads GOOGLE_CLOUD_PROJECT from env; authenticates via Application Default Credentials
vertexai.init(project=os.environ["GOOGLE_CLOUD_PROJECT"], location="us-central1")
model = GenerativeModel("chat-bison-001")
response = model.generate_content("Hello")
print(response.text)Gotchas
- For Google-published models use the model name directly, e.g. "gemini-2.0-flash-001". For third-party publishers (Anthropic, Meta, etc.) use the full publisher path, e.g. "publishers/anthropic/models/claude-3-5-sonnet-v2@20241022".
- The examples expect GOOGLE_CLOUD_PROJECT; rename it only if your application config maps the new variable.
Pricing
| Type | Price (per 1M) |
|---|---|
| Input tokens | $0.50 |
| Output tokens | $0.50 |
Capabilities
About Chat Bison
Chat Bison, a large language model from Google, is adept at multi-turn conversations, excelling in language understanding and generation for interactive applications. Although details about its architecture are limited, it is based on Google's PaLM 2 framework and trained on extensive text and code datasets. This model is proficient in various language tasks, including code and text generation, editing, and problem-solving, and is particularly well-suited for multilingual content and handling synonymous inquiries in FAQ systems. Accessible via Google's Vertex AI platform, users should note the scheduled decommissioning of the PaLM API, including Chat Bison, and consider transitioning to the Gemini API.
FAQ
What does Chat Bison cost on GCP Vertex AI?
On GCP Vertex AI, Chat Bison costs $0.50 per 1M input tokens and $0.50 per 1M output tokens.
Who created Chat Bison?
Chat Bison was created by Google DeepMind as part of the Palm 2 model family.
Is Chat Bison open source?
Chat Bison's open source status is unknown in the seed data.