Google strips Pixel Studio of AI features, pushes users to Nano Banana instead

Google's latest Pixel Studio update is a major downgrade

Instead, the company is pushing users interested in that over to Nano Banana. Google introduced its Pixel Studio app with the Pixel 9 series as a fun way to show off some of the AI capabilities of the hardware, generating scenes and creating stickers based on your ideas. While that's been nice for what it is, availability's been a bit limited, with the app only supporting Pixel 9 and 10 handsets, and these days we have much more broadly accessible image generation tools like Nano Banana. What does that mean for the Pixel Studio's future? Well, it's not good news.

Nano Banana is here to eat the Pixel Studio's lunch

Karandeep Singh Oberoi is a Durham College Journalism and Mass Media graduate who joined the Android Police team in April 2024, after serving as a full-time News Writer at Canadian publication MobileSyrup. Prior to joining Android Police, Oberoi worked on feature stories, reviews, evergreen articles, and focused on 'how-to' resources. Additionally, he informed readers about the latest deals and discounts with quick hit pieces and buyer's guides for all occasions. Oberoi lives in Toronto, Canada. When not working on a new story, he likes to hit the gym, play soccer (although he keeps calling it football for some reason🤔) and try out new restaurants in the Greater Toronto Area. Google's ambitions have come a long way. What started out as a simple Pixel Studio app has branched out into several new image generation workflows, models, and tools, leaving the app just a little redundant. For reference, the Pixel Studio app came out with the Pixel 9 series back in August 2024, and it was an instant hit thanks to its novel prompt-first image generation approach. That approach, however, has now expanded so far out that it has outgrown Pixel Studio. Related Pixel Studio: Everything you need to know about the AI image-generation platform Getting started with Pixel Studio is simple Posts By Benjamin Zeman What was once a pioneer is now being overshadowed by the very ecosystem it helped build. Just yesterday, the Mountain View, California-based tech giant released Nano Banana 2, its latest image generation model. Around the same time, Google also seems to have started winding down the Pixel Studio app. The development was highlighted by the folks over at 9to5Google after looking at the latest version 2.2.001.864530193.00 of the Pixel Studio app. Related 5 ways Pixel Studio is surprisingly useful Not just for drawing cats Posts 1 By Stephen Radochia With the update, the app has seemingly lost its generative AI tools, including its Magic Eraser-like object deletion, custom sticker creation, and prompt-based editing. What remains are general image editing tools based on the Material 3 Expressive interface, including tools for cropping, drawing, highlighting, and adding text. Nano Banana's sunrise is Pixel Studio's sunset Google has seemingly confirmed the wind-down too, telling 9to5Google that it will soon start re-directing "Pixel Studio users to Nano Banana in Gemini while offering an easy export tool for all your creations." The transition will happen over time, with "all Pixel Studio powered integrations will continue to work as expected" until then. Whether or not the app will be completely shuttered remains to be seen, but considering the vast number of AI tools that already have overlapping functionality, it is highly likely that Pixel Studio might soon find itself stepping into the Google Graveyard.