Google Launches Nano Banana 2.1, a Faster, Cheaper Update to Its Gemini Image Model
Google released Nano Banana 2.1, an updated image generation and conversational-editing model, as gemini-nano-banana-2.1 in the Gemini API, with the earlier gemini-3.1-flash-image model now marked deprecated.
Details
- Model:
gemini-nano-banana-2.1, described by Google as its “latest high-efficiency image generation and conversational editing model,” positioned as the more efficient counterpart to Nano Banana Pro - Resolution: outputs at 1K (default), 2K, and 4K, including wide and panoramic aspect ratios (1:4, 4:1, 1:8, 8:1) with previously reported tiling artifacts fixed
- Reference images: multi-image fusion supporting up to 14 reference images at once, maintaining consistency for up to 4 characters and 10 objects across a conversation
- Other capabilities: grounding with Google Web and Image Search, configurable “thinking” levels (minimal, medium, high), and Batch API support; input token limit of 131,072 and output token limit of 32,768, accepting text, image, video, and PDF input
- Quality claims: Google says the model improves visual quality and realism, text rendering, and infographic layout accuracy over the prior Nano Banana 2
- Rollout: generally available in the Gemini API now, and rolling out across the Gemini app, AI Mode in Search, Google AI Studio, Flow, Stitch, Google Ads, and the Gemini Enterprise Platform
What happened next
The release continues Google’s rapid iteration cadence on its image-generation line, following Nano Banana 2 earlier in the year, and arrives as competing labs push their own multimodal and agentic image tools — reinforcing image generation and editing as one of the more actively contested fronts among the major AI labs this quarter.