Google has had a hit consumer product after ages.
More than 5 billion images have been created on Google’s Gemini app in less than a month, the company has announced. This surge coincides with the release of Google’s Nano Banana image editing model, which had wowed tech enthusiasts and casual users alike with its abilities, particularly in image editing.
“@GeminiApp just passed 5 billion images in less than a month. What a ride, still going! Latest trend: retro selfies of you holding a baby version of you. Can’t make this stuff up!” posted Google VP Josh Woodward on X.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai chimed in too. He created his own image with the popular figurine prompt, and said “make that 5 billion and 1”.
Google’s Nano Banana has been making waves since it was anonymously released on LMArena. Even before Google had officially claimed it was behind the model, it had been getting rave reviews on the platform. Once Google officially announced the model on 26th August, its adoption only accelerated. On 6th September, Google had announced that Nano Banana had brought 10 million new users to Gemini. On 8th September, Google Gemini had appeared to catch up with ChatGPT on Google Trends data for the first time. On 13th September, Google Gemini had displaced Gemini to become the top free app on the App Store.
It appears that Nano Banana is still not slowing down, with new trends coming up all the time which are possible to execute using its abilities. These have included the figurine trend, which Google CEO Sundar Pichai also participated in, and many others, including a retro look trend which went viral in India with women transforming themselves into wearing old-style sarees, and a trend in which people are able to create images by holding up baby versions of themselves. And with more than 5 billion images having already been created in less than a month — that’s nearly one image for every human with internet access across the world — Google appears to have delivered its first hit consumer product in recent memory.