A pedestrian walks past the Google offices in London, Britain, August 14, 2025. REUTERS/Suzanne Plunkett
The model, called Nano Banana 2, is being rolled out across products, including the Gemini app, AI Mode and Lens features on Search, and Flow, its AI-powered video tool, the Alphabet-owned company said.
The launch is Google's latest in a series of moves that have propelled the company to the forefront of the AI race, helping it better compete with OpenAI's ChatGPT after suffering a string of embarrassments initially. The success has fueled a 47% surge in its stock in the past six months.
Google rolled out the Nano Banana AI image editor in August, which quickly became a viral sensation, attracting 13 million first-time users to the Gemini app in just four days in September. By mid-October, it had generated more than 5 billion images.
The tech giant followed that with the release of the upgraded Nano Banana Pro in November.
Nano Banana 2 leans on Gemini's faster and cheaper models known as Flash, which allows quicker image generation and editing, Google said, adding that it also has better instruction-following capabilities and delivers sharper details.
In November, Google released its Gemini 3 AI model, whose success prompted rival OpenAI to issue an internal "code red" to push teams to accelerate development.
Gemini 3 has significantly boosted user engagement, helping the Gemini app capture more than 750 million monthly active users at the end of December.
