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30th June 2026 - Link Blog

Nano Banana 2 Lite (via) Also known as Gemini 3.1 Flash Lite Image (gemini-3.1-flash-lite-image in their API), this is the "fastest and cheapest Gemini image model, engineered for velocity and scale".

I used AI studio to run this prompt:

Do a where's Waldo style image but it's where is the raccoon holding a ham radio

Densely illustrated "Where's Waldo"-style cartoon of a woodland festival filled with anthropomorphic animals (bears, foxes, badgers, rabbits, squirrels, owls) under a banner reading "FOREE'S FESTIVAL" and another reading "FOREST FIVAL," with bunting flags strung between trees, a Ferris wheel on the right, market stalls including one labeled "ACORN FAIR," signs reading "BANDSTAND," "HAM RADIO MEET" (appearing twice), and a stage where a bear plays guitar, a raccoon uses a ham radio, a badger plays drums, an owl looks on, and a fox plays trumpet, with crowds of animals wandering forest paths between trees and mountains in the background.

I like that one better than the results I got from the other Nano Banana models when I tried this back in April. It spelled Forest Festival wrong in two different ways though.

This is a link post by Simon Willison, posted on 30th June 2026.

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