Google’s viral model changes AI image editing

Good morning, AI enthusiasts. The AI world has been obsessed for weeks with a mystery model that appeared out of nowhere in testing to demolish the image editing leaderboard — and now, nano-banana has officially arrived.

Google just revealed the prized system as Gemini 2.5 Flash Image, and its ability to nail multi-step edits while preserving every detail might just spark the following wave of viral AI creative workflows.

In today’s AI rundown:

• Google’s 2.5 Flash Image takes AI editing to latest level

• Anthropic trials Claude for agentic browsing

• Prompt marketing videos with Gemini’s Veo 3

• Anthropic reveals how teachers are using AI

• 4 latest AI tools, community workflows, and more

LATEST DEVELOPMENTS

GOOGLE

🍌 Google’s 2.5 Flash Image takes AI editing to latest level

The Rundown: Google just released Gemini Flash 2.5 Image (a.k.a. nano-banana in testing), a brand new AI model able to precise, multi-step image editing that preserves character likeness while giving users more creative control over generations.

The main points:

• The model was a viral hit as ‘nano-banana’ in testing, rising to No. 1 on LM Arena’s Image Edit leaderboard by an enormous margin over No. 2 Flux-Kontext.

• Flash 2.5 Image supports multi-turn edits, letting users layer changes while maintaining consistency across the editing process.

• The model also can handle mixing images, applying and mixing styles across scenes and objects, and more, all using natural language prompts.

• It also uses multimodal reasoning and world knowledge, making strategic selections (like adding correct plants for the setting) through the process.

• The model is priced at $0.039 / image via API and in Google AI Studio, barely cheaper than OpenAI’s gpt-image and BFL’s Flux-Kontext models.

Why it matters: AI isn’t ready to exchange Photoshop-style workflows yet, but Google’s latest model brings us a step closer to replacing traditional editing. With next-level character consistency and image preservation, the viral Flash Image AI could drive a Studio Ghibli-style boom for Gemini — and enable a wave of viral apps in the method.

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ANTHROPIC

🖥️ Anthropic trials Claude for agentic browsing

The Rundown: Anthropic introduced a “Claude for Chrome” extension in testing to offer the AI assistant agentic control over users’ browsers, aiming to review and address security issues which have hit other AI-powered browsers and platforms.

The main points:

• The Chrome extension is being piloted via a waitlist exclusively for 1,000 Claude Max subscribers in a limited preview.

• Anthropic cited prompt injections as the important thing concern with agentic browsing, with Claude using permissions and safety mitigations to scale back vulnerabilities.

• Brave discovered similar prompt injection issues in Perplexity’s Comet browser agent, with malicious instructions capable of be inserted into web content.

• The extension shows safety improvements over Anthropic’s previously released Computer Use, an early agentic tool that had limited abilities.

Why it matters: Agentic browsing continues to be in its infancy, but Anthropic’s findings and up to date issues show that security for these systems can also be still a piece in progress. The extension move is an interesting contrast from standalone platforms like Comet and Dia, which makes for a straightforward sidebar add for those loyal to the preferred browser.

AI TRAINING

🎥 Prompt marketing videos with Gemini’s Veo 3

The Rundown: On this tutorial, you’ll learn find out how to use Gemini’s Veo 3 to generate short marketing clips from easy text prompts or images — perfect for creating campaign assets with out a video team.

Step-by-step:

1. Go to Gemini and choose “Tools” → “Videos with Veo”

2. Construct your temporary by either dragging in a picture reference or typing an outline with clear scenes and “must-show” elements

3. Use this prompt structure: “Create a [product] video. Theme: [message]. Scene 1: PLUS: Anthropic research reveals how teachers are using AI. Scene 2: [transition]. Must show: [key element]”

4. Submit and wait for rendering (Note: ~2 videos per day limit on Pro plan)

5. Export to Canva or your editor to swap text, add licensed music, and crop for various platforms (9:16, 1:1, 16:9)

Pro tip: Be explicit with transition terms like “whip pan” or “match cut” in your prompts — Veo honors specific cinematography language higher than vague descriptions.

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At Retool Summit, you may expect:

• Mainstage talks on AI and app development

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• A peek at some exciting Retool product news

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AI RESEARCH

📝 Anthropic reveals how teachers are using AI

The Rundown: Anthropic just published a brand new report analyzing 74,000 conversations from educators on Claude, discovering that professors are primarily using AI to automate administrative work, with using AI for grading a polarizing topic

The main points:

• Educators most frequently used Claude for curriculum design (57%), followed by academic research support (13%), and evaluating student work (7%).

• Professors also built custom tools with Claude’s Artifacts, starting from interactive chemistry labs to automated grading rubrics and visual dashboards.

• AI was used to automate repetitive tasks (financial planning, record-keeping), but less automation was preferred for areas like teaching and advising.

• Grading was probably the most controversial, with 49% of assessment conversations showing heavy automation despite being rated as AI’s weakest capability.

Why it matters: Students using AI within the classroom has been a difficult adjustment for the education system, but this research provides some deeper insights into the way it’s getting used on the opposite side of the desk. With each adoption and acceleration of AI still rising, its use and acceptance are more likely to vary massively from classroom to classroom.

QUICK HITS

🛠️ Trending AI Tools

• 🍌 Gemini 2.5 Flash Image – Google’s latest SOTA image editing model

• 🎬 Wan2.2-S2V – Open-source speech-to-video AI with audio capabilities

• 🗣️ Google Translate – Latest AI-powered live translations for 70+ languages

• 🎨 Adobe Firefly – AI creative platform, now featuring Gemini 2.5 Flash Image

📰 The whole lot else in AI today

Japanese media giants Nikkei and Asahi Shimbun filed a joint lawsuit against Perplexity, a day after it launched a revenue-sharing program for publishers.

U.S. first lady Melania Trump announced the Presidential AI Challenge, a nationwide competition for K-12 students to create AI solutions for issues of their community.

Google introduced latest AI upgrades to its Google Translate platform, including real-time on-screen translations for 70+ languages and interactive language learning tools.

Stanford researchers published a brand new report on AI’s impact on the labor market, finding a 13% decline in entry-level jobs for ‘AI-exposed’ professions.

AI2 unveiled Asta, a brand new ecosystem of agentic tools for scientific research, including research assistants, evaluation frameworks, and other tools.

Scale AI announced a brand new $99M contract from the U.S. Department of Defense, aiming to extend the adoption of AI across the U.S. Army.

COMMUNITY

🤝 Community AI workflows

Every newsletter, we showcase how a reader is using AI to work smarter, save time, or make life easier.

Today’s workflow comes from reader Simon S. in England:

“I design and operate luxury holidays for visitors to Europe. Each client has specific wants and desires; the variables are huge. I created an agent that understands the form of programs I would like to design, and provided it with a temporary of what that individual client desires. Inside seconds, I actually have a framework to start tweaking. Once this system is finalized, one other agent breaks down all the prices I want to cover in my quote, including making advisable rates from online trawling. A final agent then pulls all that together into the ultimate format for my client. What was easily a couple of hours’ work is now condensed into 30-45 minutes.”

How do you employ AI? Tell us here.

🎓 Highlights: News, Guides & Events

• Read our last AI newsletter: Perplexity’s $42.5M publisher peace offering

• Read our last Tech newsletter: Klarna gets $14B reality check

• Read our last Robotics newsletter: Drones that fly like birds of prey

• Today’s AI tool guide: Prompt marketing videos with Gemini’s Veo 3

• RSVP to our next workshop @ 4 PM EST Friday: Essential ChatGPT Suggestions

See you soon,

Rowan, Joey, Zach, Shubham, and Jennifer — the humans behind The Rundown