Nano Banana 2.1 is out: everything that changed

Nano Banana 2.1 release: what Google announced

• Release date: October 6, 2026, generally available (GA) from day one.
• Model id in the Gemini API: gemini-nano-banana-2.1.
• Position in the family: an update to Nano Banana 2 (Gemini 3.1 Flash Image), so Flash-tier speed and price, and the efficient counterpart to Nano Banana Pro (Gemini 3 Pro Image).
• Headline gains, in Google's words: visual design, mask-based editing and subject consistency, for more natural-looking images.
• Rollout: Gemini app, AI Mode in Search, Google AI Studio, Google Flow, Stitch, Google Ads and Gemini Enterprise. Google has not published a country list.

What's new in Nano Banana 2.1

• Visual design: more polished compositions, layouts and finished-looking assets, the area Google highlights first.
• Mask-based editing: change only the part of an image you select instead of regenerating the whole scene.
• Subject consistency: people and objects keep their identity across edits and across a series of related images. Up to 14 reference images per request (up to 10 objects and 4 characters).
• Text and prompt adherence: Google's developer notes call out cleaner text rendering for infographics and marketing assets, closer adherence to long prompts and better multi-turn consistency.
• Panoramic formats: new 1:4, 4:1, 1:8 and 8:1 aspect ratios at 2K and 4K, which fixes the tiling artifacts extreme ratios used to show.
• Grounding: Google Search grounding now includes Google Image Search, for images of real places and products.
• Thinking levels: minimal, medium (default) and high, to trade latency for quality on hard prompts.
• Sizes: 1K, 2K and 4K. The 512px tier of Nano Banana 2 is gone. Every output carries Google's SynthID watermark.

Nano Banana 2.1 vs Nano Banana 2 vs Nano Banana Pro

The spec sheet side by side. Prices are Google's Gemini API list prices for one 1K image, not what you pay on this site.

Nano Banana 2.1 price and API

Through the Gemini API, Nano Banana 2.1 costs $0.0336 per 1K image, $0.0504 at 2K and $0.0756 at 4K. Batch mode halves that ($0.0168, $0.0252, $0.0378) for jobs that can wait. That is about half of Nano Banana 2 at the same size, and the same 1K price as Nano Banana 2 Lite, which only goes up to 1K.

The model id is gemini-nano-banana-2.1. It accepts text, images and video as input, returns images (and text), and supports Google Search and Google Image Search grounding and the three thinking levels. Early developer write-ups note that function calling, context caching, structured outputs and the Live API are not supported on it at launch.

Where you can use Nano Banana 2.1 today

• Gemini app: it is rolling out as the image model behind image creation and editing.
• AI Mode in Google Search: in the Google app, tap the banana icon under the search box.
• Google Flow: pick Nano Banana 2.1 in the image model picker, where it first appeared on October 5.
• Google AI Studio and the Gemini API: for developers, as gemini-nano-banana-2.1.
• Stitch, Google Ads and Gemini Enterprise: rolling out as well.

Google has not said which countries or plans get it first, so availability can differ between accounts for a while. Our Google Flow guide walks through Flow step by step.

Nano Banana 2 shuts down on October 29

The other half of this launch is a deadline. Google has deprecated Nano Banana 2 (gemini-3.1-flash-image) and will shut it down on October 29, 2026, and tells developers to migrate to gemini-nano-banana-2.1. That leaves about three weeks.

For most people this is good news: 2.1 is cheaper at every size and better at design, editing and consistency. The one thing you lose is the 512px tier, so anything that relied on tiny, very cheap thumbnails now starts at 1K.

What we still do not know

• Independent quality: as of October 7 there is no arena ranking or third-party benchmark for 2.1, so every quality claim is Google's own.
• How it compares with Pro in practice: some early users find its results close to Nano Banana Pro; others hoped for a bigger jump in realism.
• Rollout details: Google has published no country list or plan limits for its consumer apps.

We will add our own same-prompt tests of 2.1 against Pro and Nano Banana 2 to the comparison guide as soon as it runs in our generator.

Using Nano Banana 2.1 on this site

Nano Banana 2.1 on this site now uses Nano Banana Pro, and Nano Banana Pro, Nano Banana 2, Nano Banana 2 Lite and the original Nano Banana stay in the same picker. Every new account gets free credits to try them, and our prompt guide has prompts written for 2.1's new strengths.