When Google drops a new AI model, the marketing world pays attention. The latest? An oddly named but seriously powerful tool called Nano Banana—also known as Gemini 2.5 Flash Image. It’s the company’s next leap in AI image generation and editing, and early impressions suggest this one could actually live up to the hype.
So what makes Nano Banana different from the sea of image generators already out there? For one, it’s fast. It can take a simple text prompt and spin up highly detailed images in seconds. But more importantly, it brings a level of consistency that marketers, designers, and creators have been asking for—whether that’s keeping a brand character on-model across multiple edits or seamlessly blending reference photos into one polished visual.
For anyone in marketing, this is big. It means rapid iteration on ad creative, effortless storyboarding, and the ability to scale visuals across channels without losing control of your brand’s look and feel. And since it’s available through Google’s Gemini app and developer tools, it’s built to slot directly into real creative workflows.
In this first look, I’ll walk through some of the images I’ve been generating with Nano Banana and explore where it shines—and where it still has room to grow.
Testing Character Recreation & Consistency
Using Google AI Studio I started with a previously generated AI image of a female character that was made using Stable Diffusion. I wanted to see if the new Gemini 2.5 Flash Image model could take the character, keep many of the attributes and add her to a new image.
This was my starting image.
Additional Testing With Cappuccino Ballerina
I found an AI generated image of the character Cappuccino Ballerina on Leonardo AI. There is a lot going on with it as the character is complicated in design, is in motion, has a specific facial expression and is in highly stylized surroundings.
My prompt was simple “Have the character happily dancing while performing on stage at a carnival, a ferris wheel is seen in the distance.”
From that the model produced this very beautiful image filled with detail. The character was consistent, the expression changed as did the movement of the body. The details on the clothing are precise. This may well be a game-changer.
Test of Element Removal
Finally I took another AI generated image that I liked but wanted to have some of the elements removed. I prompted over a few generations asking the model to refine until I was happy.
Things That Didn't Work & Advice
While I am happy with the results of the element removal test it is important to note that this did take several generations. As with other image models if you try and give Nano Banana too much to do in one prompt you can run into issues. Unlike other models though, the consistency from one image to the next as you make changes is astounding.
While experimenting I also tried to have the watermelon slice in the glass look more natural and realistic but the model struggled. After several attempts I gave up as it never quite worked.
I did run other tests with images that resulted in warped and deformed features as you will find with other models. Things like extra limbs on people. I could usually figure out why that was happening and correct it with revised prompts or different reference images when I was trying to pull out poses or other features from one image to another. I will continue to experiment.
First Reaction
Over the coming weeks I plan on doing a large amount of testing with this model and will write a full review when I am done. My first reactions though are very positive. Character consistency has been a thorn in my side since the beginning of AI generated art. This is incredibly important for generating images that can be used within a larger marketing strategy. Making easily identifiable characters, consistent styles and the like is vital for success.
While, as previously noted, you can achieve consistency by training models using Stable Diffusion, Nano Banana blows that away with ease of use and the end result. A marketer could go to Google, prompt their way to a character, setting or style and then through prompting alone generate thousands of new images with consistent elements.
I could easily see this being used by marketers to not only ideate and storyboard but to produce finished products. I will share more of what I find and let you know how I am using this model, if I still am, in a few weeks when I write a full review.