Nano Banana in 3 Minutes

Introduction

Nano Banana is Google’s powerful AI model for image generation and editing, built on top of Gemini 2.5 Flash. Its key strengths are high speed, low cost (about $0.04 per image, less than 5% of OpenAI), and strong capability to understand complex instructions. You can try it for free now on Google AI Studio. Both beginners and developers can get started easily.

Key Points

  • From Google
  • Edit images using prompts
  • While many other models either mess up details or need many retries, Nano Banana often gets it right on the first try

Use Cases

  • E-commerce: expand color variants and styles of product photos to drastically reduce photography costs
  • Content teams: build entire campaigns in under an hour (used to take days), since the model doesn’t require multiple retouches per image
  • Games: generate NPC character portraits
  • Marketing booster: upload a product photo (e.g., Google Pixel 10) and generate a magazine ad, city mural, or subway poster within seconds, automatically with fitting ad copy — perfect for small teams without dedicated designers
  • Image editing: precise edits via simple instructions, like removing an element, adding filters, or adjusting specific regions; results are comparable to Photoshop, yet as easy as chatting
  • Custom tools: developers can “vibe code” bespoke apps such as home design tools (Logan shared previewing 37 curtain colors for his girlfriend!) or marketing asset generators
  • Social content: quickly produce brand-consistent social media visuals that catch attention and increase engagement

Examples

Example

Example

New record? 13 images merged into a single image using Gemini 2.5 Flash Image (Nano Banana). This collage method is absolutely BANANAS! I’m actually amazed that it can do this; however, I feel like I’m reaching its limit now, but even with 13 elements it’s still managing to maintain consistency. The detailed prompt becomes very important once you start playing with a crazy amount of elements like this. 🤯

Prompt: A model is posing and leaning against a pink bmw. She is wearing the following items, the scene is against a light grey background. The green alien is a keychain and it’s attached to the pink handbag. The model also has a pink parrot on her shoulder. There is a pug sitting next to her wearing a pink collar and gold headphones.

Example: with video model

Three Levels of Using Nano Banana

  1. Beginner: use the chat interface in AI Studio to generate or edit images with simple instructions — ideal for newcomers.

  2. Intermediate: try the prebuilt apps on the AI Studio “Build” page, such as ad generators or image editors, to directly experience the model’s capabilities.

  3. Advanced: build your own custom applications on top of Nano Banana. You can download code to GitHub or continue optimizing on other platforms. Entrepreneurs can leverage it to create unique products.

Other Names

  • Gemini 2.5 Flash Image

References