Google Announces Even More AI In Photos App, Powered By Nano Banana

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The Big G is finally making good on its promise to add its market-leading Nano Banana image-editing model to the app. The model powers a couple of features, and it's not just for Google's Android platform. Nano Banana edits are also coming to the iOS version of the app. The Photos app already had conversational editing in the 'Help Me Edit' feature, but it was running an older non-fruit model that produced inferior results. Nano Banana editing will produce AI slop, yes, but it's better slop.

Google says the updated Help Me Edit feature has access to your private face groups, so you can use names in your instructions. For example, you could type 'Remove Riley's sunglasses,' and Nano Banana will identify Riley in the photo (assuming you have a person of that name saved) and make the edit without further instructions. You can also ask for more fantastical edits in Help Me Edit, changing the style of the image from top to bottom. Google is very invested in getting people to use its AI tools, but less-savvy users might not be familiar enough with AI prompting to get the most out of Nano Banana. So Google Photos is also getting a collection of AI templates in a new 'Create with AI' section. This menu will offer pre-formed prompts based on popular in-app edits. Some of the options you'll see include 'put me in a high fashion photoshoot,' 'create a professional headshot,' and 'put me in a winter holiday card.'

The app is also getting a new 'Ask' button, which is not to be confused with 'Ask Photos.' The former is a new contextual button that appears when viewing a photo, and the latter is Google's controversial natural language search feature. When looking at a photo, you can tap the Ask button to get information about the content of the photo or find related images. You can also describe edits you'd like to see in this interface, and Nano Banana will make them for you.

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