India leads the way on Google’s Nano Banana with a local creative twist

Google’s Nano Banana Image-General Model, officially known as Gemini 2.5 Flash image, has stimulated the global momentum for the Gemini app since the launch last month. But in India it has had its own creative life, with retro portraits and local trends that become viral – even when the concern about privacy and safety arises.

India has emerged as the No. 1 country in terms of Nano -Bananan use, according to David Sharon, the lead of multimodal generation for Gemini apps at Google DeepMind, who spoke during a media session this week. The popularity of the model has also sent the Gemini app to the top of the free app graphs in both the App Store and Google Play in India. The app has also climbed to the top of the charts of Global App Stores, according to app figures.

In view of the scale of India-‘worlds on the second largest smartphone market and the second largest online population after China-Is it is no surprise that the country leads to adoption. But what attracts Google’s attention is not only how many people use nano -banana, it is how: millions of Indians are busy with the AI ​​model in ways that are unique locally, very creative and in some cases completely unexpected.

One of the striking trends is that Indians use nano-banana to re-create retro-looks inspired by Bollywood from the 1990s, who imagines how they could have appeared in that era, complete with period-specific fashion, hairstyles and makeup. This trend is locally for India, Sharon told reporters.

A variation of the retro trend is what some people call the ‘ai saree’, where users generate vintage-style portraits that wear themselves in traditional Indian clothing.

Another trend room for India is that people generate their selfies for cityscapes and iconic sights, such as Big Ben and the retro -telephone cabins of the UK.

“We saw that a lot in the beginning,” said Sharon.

Indian users also experiment with Nano-Banan to transform objects, create time travel effects and even again imagine themselves as retro stamps. Others generate black and white portraits or use the model to visualize encounters with their younger ones themselves.

Some of these trends do not come from India, but the country played a key role in helping global attention. It is an example image trendWhere people generate miniature versions of themselves and often place them in front of a computer screen. The trend first emerged in Thailand, spread to Indonesia and became worldwide after obtaining a grip in India, Sharon said.

In addition to Nano Banana, Google has observed a trend in which Indian users use the VEO 3 AI video-oriented model on the Gemini app to make short videos of old photos of their grandparents and great-grandparents.

All this has contributed to the popularity of Gemini on both the App Store and Google Play in India. Between January and August, the app saw an average of 1.9 million monthly downloads in the country – about 55% higher than in the US – accounting for 16.6% of global monthly downloads, according to AppFigures data that were shared exclusively with WAN.

India downloads have 15.2 million this year until August; The US, on the other hand, has had 9.8 million downloads this year, according to data from AppFigures.

Daily downloads from the Gemini app in India rose considerably after the release of the Nano Banana Update, starting on 1 September with 55,000 installations in both app stores. Downloads peaked on 414,000 on September 13 – an increase of 667% – with Gemini since 10 September the best overall place in the iOS App Store and on Google Play since 12 September, including in all categories, AppFigures shows.

Although India leads in downloads, the country is not at the top of the Gemini app at the top of the Gemini app, which has generated an estimated $ 6.4 million in global consumer spending on iOS since the launch. The US counts the largest share of $ 2.3 million (35%), while India contributes $ 95,000 (1.5%). However, India recorded a record of 18% growth of monthly-over-month in expenditure and reached $ 13,000 between 1 and 16 September with a global increase of 11% in the same period. India places seven percentage points above the global rate and more than 17 points for the US, where growth was less than 1%.

That said, just like with other AI apps, there are concerns about users who upload personal photos to Gemini to transform their appearance.

“When a user asks us to fulfill his question, we do our best to fulfill that question. We are not trying to assume what the user’s intention is,” Sharon said, answering questions about how Google deals with data abuse and privacy problems in users in India and other top markets. “We really tried to improve that, and we have improved that to be fat and to fulfill your request.”

Google places a visible, diamond-shaped watermark on images that are generated by the Nano-Bananan model and also includes a hidden marker with his Synthid tool to identify content generated. Synthid enables Google to detect and mark whether an image is made using the models.

Sharon said reporters that Google test a detection platform with trusted testers, researchers and other experts. The company is also planning to launch a version with the consumer that would enable everyone to check whether an image AI is generated.

“This is still day one, and we are still learning, and we learn together.