Google upgraded Gemini‘s image-generating chops with Nano Banana and Nano Banana Professional, two new text-to-image AI fashions, final 12 months. Enjoyable names apart, these fashions are often called Gemini 2.5 Flash Picture and Gemini 3 Professional Picture. Google put its finest image-generation fashions in customers’ fingers by making Nano Banana Professional obtainable for 3 pictures per day, and customers are clearly loving it.
Google’s vice chairman of Gemini and Google Labs, Josh Woodward, took to X (previously Twitter) to announce that customers have generated over a billion pictures with Nano Banana Professional. Woodward famous that this mannequin was solely obtainable for 53 days when the foremost milestone was crossed, signaling that there is important demand for Nano Banana Professional.
Crossed 1 billion pictures Nano Banana Professional pictures in @GeminiApp! The professional neighborhood is transferring quick. This mannequin has been out for 53 days.Come for the potassium, keep for extra. 🙂 pic.twitter.com/DvPoitI3i9January 12, 2026
Nano Banana Professional stands out resulting from its command of hyperrealism and dealing with of textual content. Though textual content technology is a typical ache level for AI picture turbines, Nano Banana Professional crosses this hurdle simply with the flexibility to jot down textual content in a wide range of languages. There are purposes past primary picture edits or cartoon-style generations, similar to creating presentation slides or academic charts.
Customers can check out detailed prompts that inform Nano Banana Professional precisely what to do, after which watch the magic occur. Since it is a considering mannequin, you possibly can hint Gemini’s steps because it labored on learn how to sort out the Nano Banana Professional request. Within the instance beneath, a protracted immediate was used to create an isometric miniature illustration of a metropolis.
You will discover that not solely does the output include legible textual content utilizing customized typography, but it surely additionally seems clear and precisely matches the immediate directions.
Nano Banana Professional’s image-generation efficiency appears to be driving extra folks to make use of the Gemini app, and it is not the primary time. Again in September, Woodward introduced the usual Nano Banana mannequin drove 10 million customers to begin utilizing Gemini. On the time, the Gemini VP added Nano Banana edited greater than 200 million pictures in simply over every week of availability.
Now, Nano Banana Professional is following in Nano Banana’s footsteps, marking an excellent greater milestone with over a billion edits and generations. That is spectacular in and of itself, but it surely’s even higher for Google contemplating the broader context of AI picture enhancing as we speak. As rivals discover themselves in scandal, Gemini’s Nano Banana is rising as a fan-favorite picture generator that’s squeaky clear.
Google’s noncontroversial picture generator is standing out
Generative AI has been used for nefarious functions for years, however the common individual and world governments are lastly understanding the scope of AI picture generations and deepfakes, because of Grok, Elon Musk’s AI chatbot. Grok powers picture technology within the X (previously Twitter) app by way of xAI and makes it simple to create and edit pictures on X, typically of others and of an express nature, by merely replying to a submit and tagging the AI bot.
Grok’s habits is nothing new, because the expertise has been obtainable on underground websites earlier than. Nevertheless, it has by no means been this simple to generate and edit pictures of others with out their consent. It is all occurring in public, making Grok’s guardrails (or lack of them) and generative AI at massive a controversial situation. In response, Grok’s picture technology options had been restricted to paid subscribers.
Issues started coming to a head when Malaysia and Indonesia turned the primary international locations to dam Grok entry resulting from its unrestricted AI picture technology options, as reported by the Related Press.
By comparability, Google’s Nano Banana Professional-powered picture technology options are decidedly noncontroversial, and that is starting to be priceless. The corporate’s guardrails for Gemini picture technology, as soon as criticized as being too restrictive, now stand out as probably the gold commonplace for reigning in AI bots. Its coverage tips for the Gemini app stop Gemini from producing outputs containing violence, gore, express materials, threats to baby security, harassment, and extra.
Past together with the mandatory coaching limits, Google is displaying off how Nano Banana Professional can profit customers by being a office and studying software. It could generate customized explainers in Google Search’s AI Mode, create charts or infographics in NotebookLM, or diagrams in Google Slides, for instance. Nano Banana Professional can be obtainable in Google Vids and Circulation.
Crucially, Google watermarks Nano Banana and Nano Banana Professional generations and edits. Anybody can verify if a picture (or video, for that matter) was generated with Google AI by importing it to Gemini and asking.
Google is successful within the AI picture technology house on benefit, providing a software customers need to use, as evidenced by Nano Banana Professional producing over a billion pictures in below two months. Maybe extra necessary is that Google is not compromising ideas to win the AI race. Google’s image-generation fashions purpose to be protected and clear at a time when rivals look to be doing the precise reverse.
