Inside Google’s quest to build AI products for creatives

When Google’s Nano Banana image-generation tool first appeared in the wild in summer 2025, it quickly captured the internet’s attention for its ability to edit existing photos . The company also boasts one of the industry’s leading video models and has gained significant traction in AI media generation. Just this week, Google announced that users have generated more than 50 billion images with Nano Banana to date. However, like the rest of the industry, a lot of it is still fly-by use. People ask Google’s Gemini app to generate an image or short video clip and then move on. “These tools started as something you put a prompt into and then get an output out of, like a coin-operated [machine],” says Google Labs VP Elias Roman. Now Google wants to use its media-generation chops to build products that artists, filmmakers, and other professionals turn to over and over again, throughout the entire creative process. “We’re really building a new Google product line that’s entirely dedicated to