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 creativity,” Roman says.

Turning Google’s Flow tool into a media solution 

At the heart of these efforts is Flow, an online video-generation tool built by Google Labs that the company unveiled at its 2025 developer conference. Previously, Flow could generate images and 8-second video clips from text prompts.

At this week’s Google I/O, the company unveiled an update to Flow aimed at going beyond generating individual assets. Users can now chat with an AI agent to brainstorm and storyboard projects, develop scenes and character art, and ultimately generate videos. For video generation, Flow uses Google’s new Gemini Omni model, which brings Nano Banana-style editing capabilities to the medium.

Throughout these projects, Flow aims not only to keep characters consistent but also to maintain other stylistic guidelines. One example: Flow can preserve the same camera lens look across every shot, without users having to specify it in every prompt.

“Flow is evolving from this prompt-in, content-out tool to an agent that’s a copilot at every step of the creative process,” Roman says.

To support that vision, Roman says Google is allowing users to customize the platform itself, letting “creators basically vibe-code any tool or workflow they want.” Chatting with the platform’s AI agent, creatives can build tools that add video filters, compare two generated versions of a clip to spot differences, and more. “Once you make a tool, it’s shareable and even remixable by anyone else on the platform if you choose to make it public,” Roman says.

Turning Flow into more than a toy for filmmakers

At this point, Flow remains a Google Labs project. Turning it into a full-fledged product capable of competing with creative industry leaders like Adobe won’t be easy. But a shift in how the company positions Flow suggests Google is serious about trying.

When Flow debuted last year, Google partnered with Donald Glover to promote the tool, giving it the feel of a playground for Hollywood insiders eager to experiment with AI. “We had an overly limited view of that,” Roman admits. “A year ago, we really thought it was for filmmakers.”

But once the company released Flow, it saw marketers, architects, and even kindergarten teachers using it, many of whom likely don’t consider themselves the target audience for traditional creative suites aimed at media professionals. Given the right tools, though, they may become creators in their own right. “What we didn’t appreciate,” Roman says, “was that with truly AI-native tools, you’re able to serve an incredibly wide audience.”

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