Nano Banana 2 Lite and Gemini Omni Flash: What's Actually New in Google's Gemini API
Google added two new models to the Gemini API today: Nano Banana 2 Lite (image generation) and Gemini Omni Flash (video generation + editing). Neither is the Gemini 3.5 Pro release people have been waiting for, so it's easy to miss. Here's what's actually in them. TL;DR Nano Banana 2 Lite: gemini-3.1-flash-lite-image = text-to-image in ~4s, $0.034/1K images Gemini Omni Flash: gemini-omni-flash-preview = video gen + conversational editing, $0.10/sec Both are built to be chained: generate an image fast, then animate it into video Neither model is positioned as a quality upgrade = both are cost/speed plays Nano Banana 2 Lite Model ID: gemini-3.1-flash-lite-image Text-to-image output in about 4 seconds $0.034 per 1K-resolution image Positioned as the direct replacement for the original Nano Banana ( gemini-2.5-flash-image ) - if you're on that model, this is a drop-in upgrade Available in Google AI Studio, Gemini API, Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform, and consumer surfaces (Search AI Mode, Gemini app, Photos, NotebookLM, Flow, Google Ads) Gemini Omni Flash Model ID: gemini-omni-flash-preview Public preview in Google AI Studio and the Gemini API Conversational editing - refine a generated video using plain-language instructions instead of re-prompting from zero Multimodal referencing - combine text, image, and video inputs to keep a scene consistent $0.10 per second of video output (same rate as Veo 3.1 Fast) Known limitations right now Generations capped at 10 seconds No audio reference uploads yet No scene extension yet Video references under 3 seconds are accepted by the API schema but not correctly processed yet Character consistency across scene changes/pans still has rough edges Google says longer durations are coming. The part worth paying attention to: chaining them Generate an image with Nano Banana 2 Lite (fast, cheap) Pass that image as a reference into Omni Flash Omni Flash animates it into a video Both models are optimized for throughput and cost, not for to