ByteDance Releases Seedream 5, Google Unveils Nano Banana 2

Google and ByteDance launched competing image models in late February 2026: Nano Banana 2 (Gemini 3.1 Flash Image) on February 26 and Seedream 5 Lite a few days earlier. Both add multi-step chain-of-thought reasoning and real-time search integration before generation; Seedream is cheaper and supports local execution and stronger identity retention in multi-round edits, while Nano offers faster outputs, better in-image text rendering, and broad Google ecosystem integration.