One of Google’s best AI features, the Nano Banana image editor, could be making its way to Google Messages soon. The company has slowly been expanding where its Gemini AI capabilities can be used, with Nano Banana making the jump to Google Search recently. Exactly what it’s capabilities in Messages will be is unclear at the moment, as the folks at Android Authority only recently discovered the addition of a banana icon that seems to point to the feature’s impending arrival during a recent APK teardown. Despite getting the image to appear, the writers weren’t able to actually trigger the feature.
It does appear to only show up when long-pressing on an image in both personal and group chats, though, so it could be tied specifically to images that users have already taken. This is, of course, a notable move for Google, which has integrated Gemini in Messages, but mostly steered clear of adding any specific features in the past beyond writing tools.
An evolution that makes sense
While it might be one of the first hyper-specific AI features to hit Messages beyond Google’s AI writing tools, it is an evolution that makes sense. Nano Banana has gone viral since it launched, with some even saying you no longer need Photoshop to edit photos because of how powerful it is. After receiving so much praise, it makes sense for Google to bring it to the masses in Messages, which is one of the primary places where Android users share images with their friends and family.
And while it’s unclear exactly what you’ll be able to do with the Nano Bana integration before sending photos, the fact that it even exists in the APK’s code means Google is already thinking about the best way to supplement image sharing habits with AI. And that could either be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on who you are and what your views on AI are. What you can do with AI is honestly baffling in a lot of cases. Someone even claims to have made functional clones for iOS, macOS, and Windows using Gemini 3.0.
