Artificial Intelligence Image Editor Named 'Nano Banana' Unveiled by Google in Gemini Project

Google's latest offering, the Gemini app, marks a significant step in the tech giant's attempt to establish a competitive presence in the AI creativity market. The app, currently challenging industry heavyweights like Adobe, OpenAI, and MidJourney, aims to provide advanced editing tools at an affordable price, making it accessible to a wider audience.

The app's main focus is on offering a user-friendly and cost-effective solution. Google's new AI model, codenamed Nano Banana, officially known as Gemini 2.5, is now available in both free and paid versions of the app.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai showcased the capabilities of the Gemini app in a unique way, testing it on his dog Jeffree in honour of International Dog Day. A series of edited images of Jeffree as a surfer, cowboy, superhero, and chef were shared, all of which preserved Jeffree's likeness.

The Gemini app is more than just an image editor, according to Google. It feels like a creative playground, offering features such as the ability to stack edits step by step, remix textures across photos, blend images into one, and create short animated clips.

Unlike some rivals like Adobe Firefly and MidJourney, Google watermarks every output from the Gemini app with visible and invisible tags. This pricing structure could be beneficial for startups, designers, and marketing teams in emerging markets experimenting with AI workflows, as they can access the technology behind the Gemini app through Google's API, AI Studio, and Vertex AI for a low price of four cents per image or $30 per million output tokens.

The focus of Gemini 2.5 seems to be maintaining the likeness of subjects in AI-edited photos, preventing them from looking "almost-but-not-quite" real. This commitment to preserving authenticity sets the Gemini app apart in the AI creativity market.

The founder of MidJourney, a rival AI creativity platform, is David Holz. The global rollout of the Gemini app marks Google's serious entry into the AI creativity market, making it clear that the app is not a joke but a genuine competitor in the field. Google's commitment to making AI technology accessible and affordable is evident in the Gemini app, and it will be interesting to see how it fares against its competitors in the coming months.