Built on Gemini 3.6 Flash, Google’s new image generator costs around half as much and maintains consistency across four characters and ten objects.
On October 6, Google launched Nano Banana 2.1, a new version of its image generation model, which is based on Gemini 3.6 Flash. The 1K image goes from $0.067 to $0.0336, and the 4K image from $0.151 to $0.0756, a drop of about 50% at all resolutions (1K, 2K and 4K).
More references, more consistency
The model can take into account up to 14 reference images at a time and maintain the appearance of four characters and ten objects from one image to the next. Google claims progress on visual quality, text rendering, panoramas, and infographics. According to The Decoder, it overtakes Nano Banana 2 in the rankings, even though the Pro version still produces significantly better images in use.
The rollout affects the Gemini app, Search's AI mode, AI Studio, Flow, Stitch, Google Ads, and the enterprise offering. The older gemini-3.1-flash-image model will be retired on October 29, 2026.
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