Google Photos introduces six powerful AI-editing tools

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In a recent update, Google Photos rolls out six major new AI-features designed to simplify editing, creation and search inside your photo library. The enhancements include advanced editing by natural language, creative transformations powered by Google’s latest imaging model Nano Banana, new AI templates, and globally expanded conversational search.

Six Major New AI Features in Google Photos

1. “Help me edit” with text or voice commands
   Users can now describe edits in plain language — such as “remove reflections,” “fix my hair,” or “add a smile” — and Google Photos will apply those changes automatically. The tool understands natural context and can recognize faces or subjects to make precise edits.
2. Nano Banana creative transformations
   Powered by Google’s new Nano Banana model, this feature lets users transform photos into imaginative styles. Examples include turning a selfie into a Renaissance portrait, converting a family picture into a children’s storybook illustration, or reimagining a scene as a colorful digital mosaic.
3. AI templates in “Create with AI”
   A new section within the app provides ready-to-use templates for common creative themes. Options include “put me in a fashion photoshoot,” “make a professional headshot,” “turn this into a holiday card,” or “cartoonize this image.” Personalized templates, based on your library, will roll out next.
4. Expanded “Ask Photos” search
   The “Ask Photos” feature now supports over 100 countries and 17 new languages. It allows users to search their photo collections conversationally — for example, “show me pictures of my dog at the park” or “find my trip to Tokyo last spring.”
5. New “Ask” button for contextual queries
   While viewing a photo, users can tap the new “Ask” button to request edits or related searches without leaving the image. You might ask, “find other pictures from this day,” or “make this photo brighter,” and the AI responds instantly.
6. Cross-platform rollout and privacy focus
   The redesigned AI editor is coming to both Android and iOS, starting in the U.S. and India. Because these features use face recognition and personal data, Google highlights new privacy safeguards and transparent consent options to keep users in control.

Why This Matters for Prompt Engineers & Creative AI Users

For practitioners of generative AI prompts, this update means more of your workflow is moving into mainstream photo-apps. The “natural language edit” model enables prompts that aren’t just “generate an image” but “repair a photo by doing X and Y”. Plus, the inclusion of Nano Banana shows major commercial platforms are embedding advanced image-generation & editing models. This raises the bar for what prompt-designers need to know: style, transformation, subject consistency, and multi-step edits.

On the other hand, templates reduce the barrier to creative editing — you may soon see prompt-collections designed around these templates, e.g., “Use the ‘high fashion photoshoot’ template and then tweak hair/lighting/style”.

The expanded Ask/“search by photo content” capability means your image collections become more “queryable” by natural language. For generative-AI bloggers, that suggests new categories of prompts: “Find all photos of me surfing at sunset and turn them into a comic-book style set”.
From an ethical and workflow perspective: using face-groups and personalised templates means user data is driving personalization; prompt-designers will want to consider privacy, consent and how models use private images.

This update marks a meaningful shift: photo-apps are no longer just “manage and edit your gallery” but are becoming creative generative-AI platforms in their own right. For anyone building or curating prompts, especially around photo editing or transformation, the features in Google Photos highlight where the industry is heading. Being able to prompt not just “create a new image” but “edit an existing image by describing the change” opens new possibilities.

Source: Google Blog