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Nano Banana 2.1 Reaches General Availability in the Gemini API

Gemini CLIView original changelog

Google released gemini-nano-banana-2.1 to general availability in the Gemini API. It is described as the latest high-efficiency image generation and conversational editing model. It improves visual quality, prompt adherence, multi-turn character consistency and text rendering, and adds panoramic aspect ratios. The older gemini-3.1-flash-image model is deprecated.

Key Takeaways

  • gemini-nano-banana-2.1 is now generally available in the Gemini API as Google's latest high-efficiency image generation and editing model.
  • Multi-turn character consistency improves, making conversational, step-by-step image editing more reliable.
  • Text rendering gets better, addressing a long-standing weakness of image generation models.
  • Panoramic aspect ratios of 1:4, 4:1, 1:8 and 8:1 are supported, so tall and wide formats can be generated natively.
  • Resolutions of 1K, 2K and 4K are available across the new aspect ratios.
  • gemini-3.1-flash-image is deprecated, so developers should migrate to the new model ID.

A New Image Model Reaches General Availability

Google released gemini-nano-banana-2.1 in the Gemini API on October 6, 2026. The model is described as the latest high-efficiency image generation and conversational editing model in the Nano Banana family. It is generally available, so developers can use it in production without a preview label.

What Improved

Google lists four areas of improvement. Visual quality is higher, and the model follows prompts more closely. Characters stay more consistent across multi-turn conversations, which matters for iterative editing where a subject has to look the same from one edit to the next. Text rendering inside images is also better, which has been a common weak spot for image models.

New Aspect Ratios and Resolutions

The model supports wide and panoramic aspect ratios: 1:4, 4:1, 1:8 and 8:1. These are available at 1K, 2K and 4K resolutions. Banners, tall infographics, headers and panoramic scenes can now be generated directly without cropping or stitching.

Deprecation and Migration

With this release, gemini-3.1-flash-image is deprecated. Google recommends that developers migrate to gemini-nano-banana-2.1. Teams that pin the older model ID in their code should plan the switch and check their prompts, since output style and text rendering may differ slightly.