Nano Banana 2
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Last reviewed
Jun 2, 2026
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10 citations
Review status
Source-backed
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v1 · 1,853 words
Add missing citations, update stale details, or suggest a clearer explanation.
Nano Banana 2 is the public nickname for Gemini 3.1 Flash Image, an image generation and editing model released by Google DeepMind on 26 February 2026 [1][2]. It is the third model in Google's "Nano Banana" line and was built to bring the visual quality of the earlier Nano Banana Pro to the faster, cheaper Flash tier of the Gemini family [1][3]. On launch day Google made it the default image engine across the Gemini app, Google Search's AI Mode, Google Lens, the Flow filmmaking tool, and Google Ads, where it replaced Nano Banana Pro for most everyday image tasks [1][4].
Nano Banana 2 sits between the original Nano Banana, which was Gemini 2.5 Flash Image, and Nano Banana Pro, which was Gemini 3 Pro Image [4][5]. The pitch is straightforward: roughly the output quality people had been getting from the Pro model, but generated about four times faster and at close to half the price per image [3][6]. Google positions it as the model most users should reach for by default, reserving the slower, more deliberate Pro tier for jobs that need the very highest fidelity [1][4].
Like the rest of the line, the model handles both text-to-image generation and conversational editing of existing images. It draws on the broader Gemini model's world knowledge and can pull in real-time information and images from web search, which Google says lets it render specific real-world subjects more accurately and turn rough notes into infographics or diagrams [1][7]. Every image it produces carries an invisible SynthID watermark and is interoperable with C2PA Content Credentials so that the output can be identified as AI generated [1][2].
The consumer-facing name "Nano Banana" began as an unofficial nickname that Google later adopted as a brand. The underlying technical model behind Nano Banana 2 is Gemini 3.1 Flash Image, and on developer platforms it is exposed under the model ID gemini-3.1-flash-image-preview [2][8]. The "Flash" in the name marks its place in the Gemini tier system: Flash models trade some of the depth of the Pro tier for much higher speed and lower cost [3][8].
The "3.1" reflects that the model belongs to the same point-release wave as Gemini 3.1 Pro, the language model Google shipped in February 2026 as an upgrade over Gemini 3 Pro [9]. The numbering can be confusing because the three Nano Banana releases do not map cleanly onto a single version sequence. The table below lays out the relationship between the marketing names and the technical model names.
| Marketing name | Technical model | Tier | Released |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nano Banana | Gemini 2.5 Flash Image | Flash | August 2025 [5] |
| Nano Banana Pro | Gemini 3 Pro Image | Pro | November 2025 [5] |
| Nano Banana 2 | Gemini 3.1 Flash Image | Flash | February 2026 [1][5] |
Google announced Nano Banana 2 on 26 February 2026 through the Google blog and Google DeepMind, with simultaneous availability across consumer and developer surfaces [1][2]. The original Nano Banana had launched in August 2025 and drove users to generate millions of images in the Gemini app, and Nano Banana Pro followed in November 2025 with higher detail and quality [4][5]. Nano Banana 2 was the next step in that cadence and was framed as combining the speed of the first model with the capabilities of the Pro release [4][6].
A few months after the initial preview, on 29 May 2026, Google announced that both Nano Banana 2 and Nano Banana Pro had reached general availability on its enterprise platform, with 1K and 2K output generally available and 4K output remaining in preview [10]. That same update added a preview capability for Nano Banana 2 to accept video files as input for context-aware image generation [10].
Nano Banana 2 accepts text and images as input, with a context window of up to one million tokens, and produces images at resolutions from 512 pixels up to 4,096 by 4,096 pixels across a range of aspect ratios [3][8]. The 512-pixel tier was added for cheap, rapid iteration, and the release also introduced wide and tall aspect ratios such as 4:1, 1:4, 8:1, and 1:8 alongside the previously supported shapes [7].
Key capabilities reported by Google and reviewers include:
On the LMArena leaderboards used by reviewers, Nano Banana 2 led the text-to-image ranking at roughly 1,280 Elo, ahead of OpenAI's GPT Image 1.5, and placed near the top of the image-editing ranking [6]. Reported end-to-end generation time was on the order of four to six seconds per image [6].
| Attribute | Nano Banana | Nano Banana Pro | Nano Banana 2 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Technical model | Gemini 2.5 Flash Image | Gemini 3 Pro Image | Gemini 3.1 Flash Image |
| Tier | Flash | Pro | Flash |
| Released | Aug 2025 [5] | Nov 2025 [5] | Feb 2026 [1] |
| Positioning | Original viral editor | Highest detail and quality | Pro-level quality at Flash speed [1][3] |
| Relative speed | Fast | Slower, more deliberate | ~4x faster than Pro [3][6] |
| Relative cost per image | n/a | Baseline | ~Half of Pro [3][6] |
| Max resolution | Up to 2K range | Up to 4K | 512px to 4K [3][8] |
| Default in Gemini app | Superseded | Superseded by NB2 [4] | Default (Fast, Thinking, Pro modes) [4] |
The most important practical change is that Nano Banana 2 took over as the default model in the Gemini app's Fast, Thinking, and Pro modes, displacing Nano Banana Pro for routine use, while Pro remained available for the highest-fidelity work [1][4]. The headline trade is quality parity with the Pro tier at roughly a quarter of the latency and about half the cost [3][6].
At launch Nano Banana 2 rolled out across both consumer products and developer platforms [1][2]. In Search it became the default for image results through Google Lens and AI Mode across 141 countries on the Google app and on the web [4].
| Surface | Access |
|---|---|
| Gemini app | Default image model in Fast, Thinking, and Pro modes [4] |
| Google Search (AI Mode, Lens) | Default image generation in 141 countries [4] |
| Flow | Default model [1] |
| Google Ads | Available for ad creative [1] |
| Google AI Studio | Preview, paid API key [7] |
| Gemini API | Preview, model gemini-3.1-flash-image-preview [2][8] |
| Google Vertex AI | Preview at launch; GA on 29 May 2026 [2][10] |
| Antigravity, Gemini CLI, Firebase | Preview [2][7] |
Developer pricing is metered by input tokens and by output image resolution. Reported rates were $0.50 per one million input tokens, with per-image output prices that scaled with resolution [6][8].
| Output resolution | Price per image |
|---|---|
| 512 x 512 | $0.045 [6] |
| 1024 x 1024 | $0.067 [6] |
| 2048 x 2048 | $0.101 [6] |
| 4096 x 4096 | $0.151 [6] |
At those rates the model came in at roughly half the per-image cost of Nano Banana Pro and noticeably cheaper than GPT Image 1.5 at comparable quality [6].
Coverage framed Nano Banana 2 as Google pushing its viral image generator further down the price-performance curve rather than as a radical new capability set [4][6]. TechCrunch and CNBC reported it as a faster, more precise update that produced more realistic images and followed instructions more closely than the original Nano Banana [4][6]. Reviewers at DeepLearning.AI highlighted that it topped the LMArena text-to-image ranking while costing less and running faster than rivals, calling the combination of quality, speed, and price the main story [6].
Google also cited early production users. A product manager at HubX reported a 74 to 76 percent reduction in latency, which they described as making image workflows about four times faster without giving up Pro-level quality, and an engineering co-founder at Emergent pointed to stronger multilingual prompt understanding and more legible in-image text [3].
Google and reviewers flagged several caveats. In-image text rendering remains reliable mainly for short strings in Latin scripts; error rates rise sharply for long passages and for scripts such as Arabic and Hindi [3]. Because the model leans on real-world knowledge and web search for data-heavy outputs like infographics, Google warns it can misinterpret information or produce factually incorrect results, so the knowledge grounding is helpful but not authoritative [3]. At launch the highest 4K resolution was offered only in preview on the enterprise platform even after the lower tiers reached general availability [10]. As with the rest of the line, every output carries a SynthID watermark, which is a safety measure rather than a limitation but does mean images are designed to be detectable as AI generated [1][2].