--- title: Gemma 4 12B: The Encoder-Free Model Explained | daily.dev description: Gemma 4 12B is unique within the Gemma 4 family for being encoder-free when processing audio and image inputs. Other Gemma 4 models rely on a large vision... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/gemma-4-12b-the-encoder-free-model-explained-r5monijsn twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Gemma 4 12B: The Encoder-Free Model Explained | daily.dev og:description: Gemma 4 12B is unique within the Gemma 4 family for being encoder-free when processing audio and image inputs. Other Gemma 4 models rely on a large vision... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/gemma-4-12b-the-encoder-free-model-explained-r5monijsn og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/R5MonIJsN.png og:image:alt: Gemma 4 12B: The Encoder-Free Model Explained og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Gemma 4 12B: The Encoder-Free Model Explained **[Google for Developers](https://daily.dev/sources/googledevelopers)** · 2 min read · 2 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary Gemma 4 12B is unique within the Gemma 4 family for being encoder-free when processing audio and image inputs. Other Gemma 4 models rely on a large vision encoder (~550M parameters) and an audio Conformer encoder (~300M parameters) to process inputs before the LLM can work, adding to time-to-first-token latency. Instead, the 12B model converts audio segments directly into amplitude value sequences fed straight to the LLM, and uses a small ~35M parameter embedder for images that adds positional information without deep encoder processing, letting the LLM itself handle interpreting the multimodal inputs. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### How does Gemma 4 12B process audio and image inputs without using encoders? Gemma 4 12B skips dedicated encoders by cutting audio into segments converted to amplitude value sequences that project directly into the LLM as sequential data, and by using a small embedder (about 35 million parameters) for images that adds positional information without deep processing. This contrasts with other Gemma 4 models, which use a 550-million-parameter vision encoder and a 300-million-parameter Conformer audio encoder, adding time-to-first-token latency. _Developers designing multimodal architectures can follow deep dives like this on daily.dev._ ### Why do vision encoders in multimodal models increase time-to-first-token latency? Vision and audio encoders must fully process raw input into meaningful embeddings before the LLM can begin generating tokens, and that processing step adds delay. Encoders like the Conformer (300 million parameters) or vision transformers (up to 550 million parameters) perform extensive computation, whereas skipping them, as Gemma 4 12B does, reduces that upfront processing time. _Track architectural trade-offs like encoder latency by following model design breakdowns on daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Gemma 4 12B Enables On-Device, Multimodal Agentic Workflows with an Encoder-free Architecture](https://daily.dev/posts/gemma-4-12b-enables-on-device-multimodal-agentic-workflows-with-an-encoder-free-architecture-wieojqluc) · InfoQ · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [Welcome Gemma 4: Frontier multimodal intelligence on device](https://daily.dev/posts/welcome-gemma-4-frontier-multimodal-intelligence-on-device-mkjiapoth) · Hugging Face · 8 upvotes · 3 comments - [T5Gemma 2: The next generation of encoder-decoder models](https://daily.dev/posts/t5gemma-2-the-next-generation-of-encoder-decoder-models-nyxpiksgp) · Hacker News · 1 upvotes · 0 comments - [I tested Google's new Gemma 4 12B on my 8GB GPU, and now I don't want to go back to smaller models](https://daily.dev/posts/i-tested-google-s-new-gemma-4-12b-on-my-8gb-gpu-and-now-i-don-t-want-to-go-back-to-smaller-models-7rdzvdak0) · XDA Developers · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#llm](https://daily.dev/tags/llm), [#deep-learning](https://daily.dev/tags/deep-learning), [#embeddings](https://daily.dev/tags/embeddings) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/gemma-4-12b-the-encoder-free-model-explained-r5monijsn) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Gemma 4 12B: The Encoder-Free Model Explained","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/gemma-4-12b-the-encoder-free-model-explained-r5monijsn","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/gemma-4-12b-the-encoder-free-model-explained-r5monijsn"},"datePublished":"2026-09-22T23:24:24.328Z","dateModified":"2026-09-22T23:24:43.372Z","description":"Gemma 4 12B is unique within the Gemma 4 family for being encoder-free when processing audio and image inputs. 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