The newest Nano Banana & Imagen model is Nano Banana 2.1, released on October 6, 2026. It shipped 18 days ago, and the line's usual gap is about 98 days.
How long it has been since the last release against the line's usual gap and its recent ones — the rhythm, not a date.
Latest: Nano Banana 2.1 · Oct 6, 2026
Every Monday, only when something shipped: the AI models that came out, what each one changed, and which lines are due next.
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Newest first — what each version changed versus the one before, in Google's own numbers.
An update to Nano Banana 2 built on Gemini 3.6 Flash that scores 60 Elo higher in Google's blind text-to-image tests at about half the price per image.
Compared with Nano Banana 2 (Gemini 3.1 Flash Image) · the model it replaces
Preferred more often than Nano Banana 2 in blind image comparisons
Google text-to-image Elo — people pick the better image blind
1050
▲ up from 990 for Nano Banana 2 · +60 Elo, margin about 14 · Google's own test, thinking mode
Also scores higher than Nano Banana 2 in independent blind image comparisons
Artificial Analysis Text to Image Arena — people pick the better image without knowing the model
1174
▲ up from 1140 for Nano Banana 2 · +34 Elo, margin about 12 · Artificial Analysis, Oct 2026
Costs about half as much per image as Nano Banana 2
Gemini API price per generated image — 1K resolution
$0.0336 / image
▲ down from $0.067 for Nano Banana 2 · 2K image $0.0504
Google's fastest and cheapest image model: text-to-image in about 4 seconds at $0.034 per 1K image, half the price of Nano Banana 2, built for high-volume generation.
Brings Nano Banana Pro's quality and world knowledge to the faster Flash tier, with 512px-to-4K output and consistent identity for up to five characters — at $0.067 per 1K image, half the Pro price.
Google's image generation moves into Gemini itself: consistent characters across edits and multi-image blending, at Flash speed.