Generate structured data by using the AI.GENERATE_TABLE function

The AI.GENERATE_TABLE function lets you extract structured attributes from unstructured text into typed table columns in BigQuery. In this tutorial, you create a remote model over a Gemini model and extract sentiment and keywords from a public dataset of movie reviews.

Objectives

• Create a dataset and a Cloud resource connection.
• Grant permissions to the connection's service account.
• Create a BigQuery ML remote model.
• Generate structured data from unstructured text by using the AI.GENERATE_TABLE function.

Costs

In this document, you use the following billable components of Google Cloud:

• BigQuery: You incur costs for the data that you process in BigQuery.
• Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform: You incur costs for calls to the Agent Platform model.

To generate a cost estimate based on your projected usage, use the pricing calculator.

New Google Cloud users might be eligible for a free trial.

For more information, see BigQuery pricing and Agent Platform pricing.

Before you begin

Console

Sign in to your Google Cloud account. If you're new to Google Cloud, create an account to evaluate how our products perform in real-world scenarios. New customers also get $300 in free credits to run, test, and deploy workloads.

In the Google Cloud console, on the project selector page, select or create a Google Cloud project.

Roles required to select or create a project

• Select a project: Selecting a project doesn't require a specific IAM role—you can select any project that you've been granted a role on.
• Create a project: To create a project, you need the Project Creator role (roles/resourcemanager.projectCreator), which contains the resourcemanager.projects.create permission. Learn how to grant roles.

Note: If you don't plan to keep the resources that you create in this procedure, create a project instead of selecting an existing project. After you finish these steps, you can delete the project, removing all resources associated with the project.

Go to project selector

Verify that billing is enabled for your Google Cloud project.

Enable the BigQuery, BigQuery Connection, and Agent Platform API APIs, if any are not already enabled.

Roles required to enable APIs

To enable APIs, you need the serviceusage.services.enable permission. If you created the project, then you likely already have this permission through the Owner role (roles/owner). Otherwise, you can get this permission through the Service Usage Admin role (roles/serviceusage.serviceUsageAdmin). Learn how to grant roles.

Enable the APIs

In the Google Cloud console, on the project selector page, select or create a Google Cloud project.

Roles required to select or create a project

• Select a project: Selecting a project doesn't require a specific IAM role—you can select any project that you've been granted a role on.
• Create a project: To create a project, you need the Project Creator role (roles/resourcemanager.projectCreator), which contains the resourcemanager.projects.create permission. Learn how to grant roles.

Note: If you don't plan to keep the resources that you create in this procedure, create a project instead of selecting an existing project. After you finish these steps, you can delete the project, removing all resources associated with the project.

Go to project selector

Verify that billing is enabled for your Google Cloud project.

Enable the BigQuery, BigQuery Connection, and Agent Platform API APIs, if any are not already enabled.

Roles required to enable APIs

To enable APIs, you need the serviceusage.services.enable permission. If you created the project, then you likely already have this permission through the Owner role (roles/owner). Otherwise, you can get this permission through the Service Usage Admin role (roles/serviceusage.serviceUsageAdmin). Learn how to grant roles.

Enable the APIs

1. Make sure that you have the following role or roles on the project: BigQuery Admin, Project IAM Admin

   Check for the roles

   1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the IAM page.

      Go to IAM
   2. Select the project.

   3. In the Principal column, find all rows that identify you or a group that you're included in. To learn which groups you're included in, contact your administrator.

   4. For all rows that specify or include you, check the Role column to see whether the list of roles includes the required roles.

   Grant the roles

   1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the IAM page.

      Go to IAM
   2. Select the project.
   3. Click Grant access.

   4. In the New principals field, enter your user identifier. This is typically the email address for a Google Account.

   5. Click Select a role, then search for the role.
   6. To grant additional roles, click Add another role and add each additional role.
   7. Click Save.

gcloud

Sign in to your Google Cloud account. If you're new to Google Cloud, create an account to evaluate how our products perform in real-world scenarios. New customers also get $300 in free credits to run, test, and deploy workloads.

Install the Google Cloud CLI.

If you're using an external identity provider (IdP), you must first sign in to the gcloud CLI with your federated identity.

To initialize the gcloud CLI, run the following command:

gcloud init

Create or select a Google Cloud project.

Roles required to select or create a project

• Select a project: Selecting a project doesn't require a specific IAM role—you can select any project that you've been granted a role on.
• Create a project: To create a project, you need the Project Creator role (roles/resourcemanager.projectCreator), which contains the resourcemanager.projects.create permission. Learn how to grant roles.

Note: If you don't plan to keep the resources that you create in this procedure, create a project instead of selecting an existing project. After you finish these steps, you can delete the project, removing all resources associated with the project.

• Create a Google Cloud project:

  gcloud projects create PROJECT_ID

  Replace PROJECT_ID with a name for the Google Cloud project you are creating.

• Select the Google Cloud project that you created:

  gcloud config set project PROJECT_ID

  Replace PROJECT_ID with your Google Cloud project name.

Verify that billing is enabled for your Google Cloud project.

Enable the BigQuery, BigQuery Connection, and Agent Platform API APIs, if any are not already enabled:

Roles required to enable APIs

To enable APIs, you need the serviceusage.services.enable permission. If you created the project, then you likely already have this permission through the Owner role (roles/owner). Otherwise, you can get this permission through the Service Usage Admin role (roles/serviceusage.serviceUsageAdmin). Learn how to grant roles.

gcloud services enable bigquery.googleapis.com bigqueryconnection.googleapis.com aiplatform.googleapis.com

Install the Google Cloud CLI.

If you're using an external identity provider (IdP), you must first sign in to the gcloud CLI with your federated identity.

To initialize the gcloud CLI, run the following command:

gcloud init

Create or select a Google Cloud project.

Roles required to select or create a project

• Select a project: Selecting a project doesn't require a specific IAM role—you can select any project that you've been granted a role on.
• Create a project: To create a project, you need the Project Creator role (roles/resourcemanager.projectCreator), which contains the resourcemanager.projects.create permission. Learn how to grant roles.

Note: If you don't plan to keep the resources that you create in this procedure, create a project instead of selecting an existing project. After you finish these steps, you can delete the project, removing all resources associated with the project.

• Create a Google Cloud project:

  gcloud projects create PROJECT_ID

  Replace PROJECT_ID with a name for the Google Cloud project you are creating.

• Select the Google Cloud project that you created:

  gcloud config set project PROJECT_ID

  Replace PROJECT_ID with your Google Cloud project name.

Verify that billing is enabled for your Google Cloud project.

Enable the BigQuery, BigQuery Connection, and Agent Platform API APIs, if any are not already enabled:

Roles required to enable APIs

To enable APIs, you need the serviceusage.services.enable permission. If you created the project, then you likely already have this permission through the Owner role (roles/owner). Otherwise, you can get this permission through the Service Usage Admin role (roles/serviceusage.serviceUsageAdmin). Learn how to grant roles.

gcloud services enable bigquery.googleapis.com bigqueryconnection.googleapis.com aiplatform.googleapis.com

1. Grant roles to your user account. Run the following command once for each of the following IAM roles: roles/bigquery.admin, roles/resourcemanager.projectIamAdmin

   gcloud projects add-iam-policy-binding PROJECT_ID --member="user:USER_IDENTIFIER" --role=ROLE

   Replace the following:

   • PROJECT_ID: Your project ID.
   • USER_IDENTIFIER: The identifier for your user account. For example, [e-mail].
   • ROLE: The IAM role that you grant to your user account.

Create a dataset

To create a BigQuery dataset, select one of the following options:

Console

1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the BigQuery page.

   Go to BigQuery

2. In the left pane, click Explorer:

   

   If you don't see the left pane, click Expand left pane to open the pane.

3. In Explorer, expand your project, and then click Datasets.

4. On the Datasets page, click Create dataset.

5. In the Create dataset pane, do the following:

   • For Dataset ID, enter bqml_tutorial.

   • For Data location, select US.

   Leave the remaining default settings as they are.

6. Click Create dataset.

bq

To create a new dataset, use the bq mk --dataset command.

1. Create a dataset named bqml_tutorial with the data location set to US:

   bq mk --dataset \
     --location=US \
     --description "BigQuery ML tutorial dataset." \
     bqml_tutorial

2. Confirm that the dataset was created:

   bq ls

API

Call the datasets.insert method with a defined dataset resource:

{
  "datasetReference": {
     "datasetId": "bqml_tutorial"
  }
}

Create a connection

Create a Cloud resource connection in the US multiregion, where you created the dataset. Then get the connection's service account.

Select one of the following options:

Console

1. Go to the BigQuery page.

   Go to BigQuery

2. In the left pane, click Explorer:

   

   If you don't see the left pane, click Expand left pane to open the pane.

3. In the Explorer pane, expand your project name, and then click Connections.

4. On the Connections page, click Create connection.

5. For Connection type, choose Vertex AI remote models, remote functions, BigLake and Spanner (Cloud Resource).

6. In the Connection ID field, enter a name for your connection.

7. For Location type, select a location for your connection. The connection should be colocated with your other resources such as datasets.

8. Click Create connection.

9. Click Go to connection.

10. In the Connection info pane, copy the service account ID for use in a later step.

SQL

Use the CREATE CONNECTION statement:

1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the BigQuery page.

   Go to BigQuery

2. In the query editor, enter the following statement:

   CREATE CONNECTION [IF NOT EXISTS] `CONNECTION_NAME`
   OPTIONS (
     connection_type = "CLOUD_RESOURCE",
     friendly_name = "FRIENDLY_NAME",
     description = "DESCRIPTION"
     );

   Replace the following:

   • CONNECTION_NAME: the name of the connection in either the PROJECT_ID.LOCATION.CONNECTION_ID, LOCATION.CONNECTION_ID, or CONNECTION_ID format. If the project or location are omitted, then they are inferred from the project and location where the statement is run.
   • FRIENDLY_NAME (optional): a descriptive name for the connection.
   • DESCRIPTION (optional): a description of the connection.

3. Click Run.

For more information about how to run queries, see Run an interactive query.

bq

1. In a command-line environment, create a connection:

   bq mk --connection --location=REGION --project_id=PROJECT_ID \
       --connection_type=CLOUD_RESOURCE CONNECTION_ID

   The --project_id parameter overrides the default project.

   Replace the following:

   • REGION: your connection region
   • PROJECT_ID: your Google Cloud project ID
   • CONNECTION_ID: an ID for your connection

   When you create a connection resource, BigQuery creates a unique system service account and associates it with the connection.

   Troubleshooting: If you get the following connection error, update the Google Cloud SDK:

   Flags parsing error: flag --connection_type=CLOUD_RESOURCE: value should be one of...
   

2. Retrieve and copy the service account ID for use in a later step:

   bq show --connection PROJECT_ID.REGION.CONNECTION_ID

   The output is similar to the following:

   name                          properties
   1234.REGION.CONNECTION_ID     {"serviceAccountId": "[e-mail]"}
   

Python

Before trying this sample, follow the Python setup instructions in the Vertex AI quickstart using client libraries. For more information, see the Vertex AI Python API reference documentation.

To authenticate to Vertex AI, set up Application Default Credentials. For more information, see Set up authentication for client libraries.

import google.api_core.exceptions
from google.cloud import bigquery_connection_v1

client = bigquery_connection_v1.ConnectionServiceClient()


def create_connection(
    project_id: str,
    location: str,
    connection_id: str,
):
    """Creates a BigQuery connection to a Cloud Resource.

    Cloud Resource connection creates a service account which can then be
    granted access to other Google Cloud resources for federated queries.

    Args:
        project_id: The Google Cloud project ID.
        location: The location of the connection (for example, "us-central1").
        connection_id: The ID of the connection to create.
    """

    parent = client.common_location_path(project_id, location)

    connection = bigquery_connection_v1.Connection(
        friendly_name="Example Connection",
        description="A sample connection for a Cloud Resource.",
        cloud_resource=bigquery_connection_v1.CloudResourceProperties(),
    )

    try:
        created_connection = client.create_connection(
            parent=parent, connection_id=connection_id, connection=connection
        )
        print(f"Successfully created connection: {created_connection.name}")
        print(f"Friendly name: {created_connection.friendly_name}")
        print(
            f"Service Account: {created_connection.cloud_resource.service_account_id}"
        )

    except google.api_core.exceptions.AlreadyExists:
        print(f"Connection with ID '{connection_id}' already exists.")
        print("Please use a different connection ID.")
    except Exception as e:
        print(f"An unexpected error occurred while creating the connection: {e}")

Node.js

Before trying this sample, follow the Node.js setup instructions in the Vertex AI quickstart using client libraries. For more information, see the Vertex AI Node.js API reference documentation.

To authenticate to Vertex AI, set up Application Default Credentials. For more information, see Set up authentication for client libraries.

const {ConnectionServiceClient} =
  require('@google-cloud/bigquery-connection').v1;
const {status} = require('@grpc/grpc-js');

const client = new ConnectionServiceClient();

/**
 * Creates a new BigQuery connection to a Cloud Resource.
 *
 * A Cloud Resource connection creates a service account that can be granted access
 * to other Google Cloud resources.
 *
 * @param {string} projectId The Google Cloud project ID. for example, 'example-project-id'
 * @param {string} location The location of the project to create the connection in. for example, 'us-central1'
 * @param {string} connectionId The ID of the connection to create. for example, 'example-connection-id'
 */
async function createConnection(projectId, location, connectionId) {
  const parent = client.locationPath(projectId, location);

  const connection = {
    friendlyName: 'Example Connection',
    description: 'A sample connection for a Cloud Resource',
    // The service account for this cloudResource will be created by the API.
    // Its ID will be available in the response.
    cloudResource: {},
  };

  const request = {
    parent,
    connectionId,
    connection,
  };

  try {
    const [response] = await client.createConnection(request);

    console.log(`Successfully created connection: ${response.name}`);
    console.log(`Friendly name: ${response.friendlyName}`);

    console.log(`Service Account: ${response.cloudResource.serviceAccountId}`);
  } catch (err) {
    if (err.code === status.ALREADY_EXISTS) {
      console.log(`Connection '${connectionId}' already exists.`);
    } else {
      console.error(`Error creating connection: ${err.message}`);
    }
  }
}

Terraform

Use the google_bigquery_connection resource.

Note: To create BigQuery objects using Terraform, you must enable the Cloud Resource Manager API.

To authenticate to BigQuery, set up Application Default Credentials. For more information, see Set up authentication for client libraries.

The following example creates a Cloud resource connection named my_cloud_resource_connection in the US region:

# This queries the provider for project information.
data "google_project" "default" {}

# This creates a cloud resource connection in the US region named my_cloud_resource_connection.
# Note: The cloud resource nested object has only one output field - serviceAccountId.
resource "google_bigquery_connection" "default" {
  connection_id = "my_cloud_resource_connection"
  project       = data.google_project.default.project_id
  location      = "US"
  cloud_resource {}
}

To apply your Terraform configuration in a Google Cloud project, complete the steps in the following sections.

Prepare Cloud Shell

1. Launch Cloud Shell.

2. Set the default Google Cloud project where you want to apply your Terraform configurations.

   You only need to run this command once per project, and you can run it in any directory.

   export GOOGLE_CLOUD_PROJECT=PROJECT_ID

   Environment variables are overridden if you set explicit values in the Terraform configuration file.

Prepare the directory

Each Terraform configuration file must have its own directory (also called a root module).

1. In Cloud Shell, create a directory and a new file within that directory. The filename must have the .tf extension—for example main.tf. In this tutorial, the file is referred to as main.tf.

   mkdir DIRECTORY && cd DIRECTORY && touch main.tf

2. If you are following a tutorial, you can copy the sample code in each section or step.

   Copy the sample code into the newly created main.tf.

   Optionally, copy the code from GitHub. This is recommended when the Terraform snippet is part of an end-to-end solution.

3. Review and modify the sample parameters to apply to your environment.
4. Save your changes.
5. Initialize Terraform. You only need to do this once per directory.

   terraform init

   Optionally, to use the latest Google provider version, include the -upgrade option:

   terraform init -upgrade

Apply the changes

1. Review the configuration and verify that the resources that Terraform is going to create or update match your expectations:

   terraform plan

   Make corrections to the configuration as necessary.

2. Apply the Terraform configuration by running the following command and entering yes at the prompt:

   terraform apply

   Wait until Terraform displays the "Apply complete!" message.

3. Open your Google Cloud project to view the results. In the Google Cloud console, navigate to your resources in the UI to make sure that Terraform has created or updated them.

Note: Terraform samples typically assume that the required APIs are enabled in your Google Cloud project.

Grant permissions to the connection's service account

Grant the connection's service account the Agent Platform User (roles/aiplatform.user) role. You must grant this role in the same project you created or selected in the Before you begin section. Granting the role in a different project results in the error [e-mail] does not have the permission to access resource.

To grant the role, follow these steps:

1. Go to the IAM & Admin page.

   Go to IAM & Admin

2. Click Grant Access.

3. In the New principals field, enter the service account ID that you copied earlier.

4. In the Select a role field, search for the Agent Platform User role.

5. Click Save.

Create the remote model

Use the CREATE MODEL statement to create a remote model that represents a hosted Agent Platform model:

1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the BigQuery page.

   Go to BigQuery

2. In the query editor, run the following statement:

   CREATE OR REPLACE MODEL `bqml_tutorial.gemini_model`
     REMOTE WITH CONNECTION `LOCATION.CONNECTION_ID`
     OPTIONS (ENDPOINT = 'gemini-3.5-flash-lite');

   Replace the following:

   • LOCATION: the connection location
   • CONNECTION_ID: the ID of your BigQuery connection

     When you view the connection details in the Google Cloud console, this is the value in the last section of the fully qualified connection ID that is shown in Connection ID, for example projects/myproject/locations/connection_location/connections/myconnection

   The query takes several seconds to complete, after which the model gemini_model appears in the bqml_tutorial dataset. There are no query results.

Generate structured data

Extract structured sentiment and keywords from movie reviews by using the AI.GENERATE_TABLE function and the remote model:

1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the BigQuery page.

   Go to BigQuery

2. In the query editor, run the following statement to extract sentiment and keywords from five movie reviews:

   SELECT
     movie_id,
     sentiment,
     keywords
   FROM
     AI.GENERATE_TABLE(
       MODEL `bqml_tutorial.gemini_model`,
       (
         SELECT
           CONCAT(
             """Analyze the following movie review. Extract a sentiment
             (positive or negative) and up to 3 keywords: """,
             review) AS prompt,
           movie_id
         FROM
           `bigquery-public-data.imdb.reviews`
         LIMIT 5
       ),
       STRUCT(
         "sentiment STRING, keywords ARRAY<STRING>" AS output_schema));

   The output is similar to the following:

   +-----------+-----------+----------------------------------------------+
   | movie_id  | sentiment | keywords                                     |
   +-----------+-----------+----------------------------------------------+
   | tt0369053 | positive  | ["cinematography", "performances", "comedy"] |
   | tt0328400 | negative  | ["disregarded", "disappointing", "poorly"]   |
   | ...       | ...       | ...                                          |
   +-----------+-----------+----------------------------------------------+
   

Clean up

To avoid incurring charges to your Google Cloud account for the resources used in this tutorial, either delete the project that contains the resources, or keep the project and delete the individual resources.

Delete the project

Caution: Deleting a project has the following effects:

• Everything in the project is deleted. If you used an existing project for the tasks in this document, when you delete it, you also delete any other work you've done in the project.
• Custom project IDs are lost. When you created this project, you might have created a custom project ID that you want to use in the future. To preserve the URLs that use the project ID, such as an appspot.com URL, delete selected resources inside the project instead of deleting the whole project.

If you plan to explore multiple architectures, tutorials, or quickstarts, reusing projects can help you avoid exceeding project quota limits.

Delete a Google Cloud project:

gcloud projects delete PROJECT_ID

Delete individual resources

If you want to reuse the project, then delete the resources that you created for the tutorial:

Console

1. In the Google Cloud console, go to the BigQuery page.

   Go to BigQuery

2. Delete the bqml_tutorial dataset. Deleting the dataset also deletes the remote model.

   1. In the Explorer pane, expand your project and click Datasets.

   2. In the Datasets list, click the bqml_tutorial dataset.

   3. In the details pane, click Delete.

   4. In the Delete dataset dialog, click Delete.

3. Delete the connection.

   1. In the Explorer pane, expand your project and click Connections.

   2. In the Connections list, click the connection that you created.

   3. In the details pane, click Delete.

   4. In the Delete connection dialog, enter delete to confirm deletion.

   5. Click Delete.

gcloud

1. Delete the bqml_tutorial dataset and the remote model:

   bq rm --dataset --recursive bqml_tutorial
   

2. Delete the connection:

   bq rm --connection <var>PROJECT_ID</var>.<var>LOCATION</var>.<var>CONNECTION_ID</var>
   

   Replace the following:

   • <var>PROJECT_ID</var>: your Google Cloud project ID
   • <var>LOCATION</var>: the connection location
   • <var>CONNECTION_ID</var>: the connection ID

What's next

• Learn more about the AI.GENERATE_TABLE function.
• Learn more about generative AI in BigQuery.
• Learn how to choose a text generation function.