Pichai's Three Bananas Reveal Google's Nano Banana AI for Consistent Image Edits

A cryptic tweet turns into a product reveal

Google CEO Sundar Pichai set social media buzzing when he tweeted three banana emojis. What looked like a playful tease turned into a reveal for a substantial new image-editing capability inside Google's Gemini lineup: Gemini 2.5 Flash Image, internally nicknamed Nano Banana.

Demonstration with Jeffree the dog

To showcase the model's strengths, Pichai shared AI-edited photos of his dog Jeffree in three wildly different costumes — cowboy, surfer, and superhero. The point was visual and simple: the tool preserves the identity and likeness of a subject across diverse edits. The result was a viral wave of reactions and a bright example of how theatrics and product launches can collide.

What makes Nano Banana different

Nano Banana combines accuracy and creative flexibility. Rather than producing subtle distortions or inconsistent faces that can plague many image-editing models, this tool focuses on identity consistency. It can:

• Keep a subject recognizable across multiple, dramatic edits
• Support multi-turn editing so users can iteratively add, remove or transform elements
• Mix design elements and textures from different images to produce coherent new visuals
• Blend multiple source photos while preserving character likeness

These capabilities are driven by natural-language prompts, making complex edits accessible through simple text instructions.

Where it lives and who can use it

Nano Banana appears at the top of anonymous leaderboards like LMArena, indicating strong performance compared with other image-generation models. Google has made the feature available not only in the consumer-facing Gemini app but also to developers via the Gemini API, Google AI Studio, and Vertex AI. That means hobbyists, content creators, and professionals can integrate the tech into apps and workflows.

Why this matters for creators and brands

The launch blends playful branding with real technical advances. A model that enables cinematic, identity-consistent edits lowers the barrier for producing high-quality visuals. For marketers, copywriters, and visual storytellers, Nano Banana could speed up ideation and production, enable consistent character-driven campaigns, and reshape how rapid stylized edits are made in place of or alongside tools like Photoshop and Canva.

The creative pivot

More than a novelty, Nano Banana signals a shift in image-editing AI: toward tools that preserve subject integrity while allowing broad stylistic freedom. The banana emoji was a hook, but the underlying innovation sits squarely in solving a practical editing problem for a wide range of users.