oogle has once again raised the bar on AI image generation.

On Thursday, the company unveiled Nano Banana 2, the latest iteration of its image model, offering advanced world knowledge and quality and reasoning at faster speeds than its predecessor. Arguably, the biggest upgrade is how it handles text.

Nano Banana 2 is powered by real-time information and images gathered from web search. In a post on X, Google noted that users can create images with “real-world accuracy,” including improved lighting, textures and details.

“This deep understanding also helps you create infographics, turn notes into diagrams and generate data visualizations,” Google said in its announcement.

Of all of the upgrades that Nano Banana 2 touts, two in particular stick out: Creative control and text rendering.

• Nano Banana 2’s ability to render text with more accuracy is something that past image generators have largely struggled with, often making it one of the easiest ways to flag that an image was generated using AI. The model can also translate localized text within an image between languages.
• The model also offers more creative control, including better instruction following, subject and character consistency and production-ready specs with resolutions from 512px to 4K.
• These capabilities open the door for Google’s image model to be far more valuable for enterprise use cases, such as graphic design or marketing, where it can now be used to create printable materials.

Nano Banana 2 is currently available across the Google and Gemini suite, including in the Gemini app, search, AI Studio, Google Cloud and in the Google Ads platform.

Our Deeper View

Though it’s easier to make the case for embedding language models or agents into enterprise processes, image generation models are a harder sell, with inconsistency and poor text rendering capabilities impeding marketing departments from using them. Nano Banana 2, however, might break the mold, allowing creatives and marketers to render billboards, printed programs, or entire campaigns with text that looks much more polished and professional. Given that Google is powering this model with web data, however, copyright issues may still present a thorn. As copyright infringement cases against AI firms persist, enterprises might want to pause before taking the legal risk, even if the capabilities of Google’s new model seem enticing.