Google AI Image Generator Worsens: Reddit vs. ChatGPT

Users on Reddit are reporting that Google's AI image generator, Nano Banana 2, has gotten worse. Some describe images as looking "flat or cartoonish." What's interesting is that Nano Banana 2 hasn't had an official update since February. The underlying AI, Gemini, did receive an update in July with Gemini 3.6 Flash, but this did not change the image generator itself. Complaints about the quality regression date back to May, suggesting this isn't a new observation. Google did release a new image model, Nano Banana 2 Lite, in July. Also, Nano Banana 2 has been integrated into products like Google Earth. One possibility for the perceived change is that the text model interpreting prompts may have changed, leading to different image outputs even if the image generator itself remains the same. To test these claims, a comparison was made using the same prompt for both Gemini and ChatGPT, asking for a realistic image of a dragon flying overhead. This matters because it highlights how subtle changes in AI models can significantly impact user perception and output quality.