Google has unveiled Nano Banana (officially Gemini 2.5 Flash Image), a groundbreaking AI image generation and editing model that’s taking the creative world by storm. Released on August 26, 2025, this model has already achieved the #1 rating for image editing globally.
The Secret Codename Revealed
Nano Banana first appeared anonymously on the crowd-sourced AI evaluation platform LMArena in early August 2025. The quirky codename “Nano Banana” was used during pre-release testing, allowing the community to evaluate its performance without knowing its identity. The name stuck, and now it’s become synonymous with lightning-fast, high-quality AI image editing.
Game-Changing Speed
While competitors take 10-15 seconds per image, Nano Banana delivers results in 1-2 seconds—sometimes even faster. This near-instantaneous response makes it feel like working in real-time, revolutionizing the creative workflow for designers and content creators.
Key Capabilities
Natural Language Editing
Edit any image using simple text prompts. Want to change a daytime scene to sunset? Just ask. The model understands complex transformations through conversational commands.
Character Consistency
Maintain a character’s likeness across multiple images—perfect for storytelling, marketing campaigns, or creating consistent visual content. The technology ensures that photos of friends, family, and even pets look consistently like themselves.
Multi-Image Blending
Blend multiple images into a single cohesive output, leveraging Gemini’s world knowledge to generate and edit images with unprecedented accuracy.
Viral 3D Figurine Trend
Nano Banana sparked a social media phenomenon with its ability to create styled “3D figurine” photos, demonstrating its creative versatility and capturing public imagination.
Performance and Recognition
The AI community has been “going bananas” over this release. Nano Banana currently holds the top position as the world’s best image editing model on LMArena benchmarks, surpassing established competitors in both quality and speed.
Availability and Pricing
Nano Banana is available now through:
- Gemini API and Google AI Studio (for developers)
- Vertex AI (for enterprise)
- Gemini app (for consumers)
Pricing: $30.00 per 1 million output tokens
- Each image = 1,290 output tokens
- Cost per image: approximately $0.039
Industry Impact
This release represents Google’s strongest entry yet into the AI image editing space, directly challenging Adobe’s AI tools and other creative AI platforms. The combination of speed, quality, and natural language control sets a new standard for what users should expect from AI image editing tools.
“Nano Banana represents the future of creative AI,” noted industry analysts. “The speed advantage alone is transformative, but combined with its editing capabilities, it changes how creators can work with AI.”
What’s Next
With Nano Banana’s success, Google is expected to expand Gemini’s multimodal capabilities further, potentially integrating these image editing features more deeply across Google’s product ecosystem.
For the latest AI news and breakthrough technologies, stay tuned to AI Breaking.