Google Photos Gets Multiple New AI Features, Adds Nano Banana Editing Capabilities

Google Photos is getting several new artificial intelligence (AI) features and is expanding existing features to more countries, the company announced on Tuesday. Among them, the most notable announcement from the Mountain View-based tech giant is the integration of the Nano Banana image editing model into the app's editor. The company has also added a new Ask button to the app that will let users ask questions about their images conversationally. Some of these features are currently limited to the US, while others are being rolled out to more regions.

New AI Features Arrive in Google Photos

In a blog post, the tech giant detailed five new updates about Google Photos. The new and expanded features are focused on three areas of edit, create and search. Last month, the company revealed that Google Photos would soon get Nano Banana features. Now, it has finally started rolling out the capability for users.

Nano Banana's capabilities will be available within Google Photos' image editor. When users tap the Help me edit button, they can now make more complex requests, which were previously not supported. For instance, they can ask the AI to “paint me as a Renaissance portrait” or to “restyle my image as a mosaic made by colourful tiles.” Essentially, any edit that Gemini can make using the Nano Banana tool is now possible directly within the app.

Notably, Google did not highlight whether this feature was being released in a particular location or globally, but it mentioned that it is currently only available for Android users.

For iOS users in the US, the company is now rolling out the Help me edit feature, which allows users to make edits to images with either text or voice-based instructions. However, since this is not supported by Nano Banana, users will be limited to the capabilities of the native editor of the app. Additionally, it is also bringing a redesigned photo editor for iPhone users.

Earlier this year, the company added a new Create tab in Google Photos. This section showcases all the different AI tools available to the user for ease of access. Now, the tech giant has added a new AI templates feature to the tab. Powered by Nano Banana, these templates let users create images based on popular edits.

For instance, users can upload an image of themselves and select the “high fashion photoshoot” template to have it be transformed into that style. This mode does not require users to add text prompts. Notably, the feature is first coming to India and the US on Android and will be rolled out this week.

Google highlighted that in the coming weeks, it also plans to introduce a personalisation layer to the feature, which will utilise insights about users from their photo gallery and suggest unique edits related to their hobbies and experiences. This will be first rolled out in the US.

The company is also adding a new Ask button to the images in the Google Photos library. The button opens up a text box and lets users start a conversation about the content of the image, find related images, or even describe the edits.

Finally, Ask Photos, the conversational image search feature, is also being rolled out to more than 100 countries and 17 new languages.