Google just declared itself an AI design candidate at IO 2026

Google introduced Tuesday at its annual Google I/O occasion that it’s releasing Pics, a brand new AI-powered design and picture era app for Google Workspace. The tech large says it designed the app to be accessible to everybody from lecturers to small enterprise house owners.

Pics permits customers to create every thing from social media graphics and invites to advertising supplies and mockups utilizing easy textual content prompts, with out the necessity for enhancing expertise or superior instruments. By giving customers a simple solution to generate visuals, Google is attempting to compete with fashionable design apps like Canva and merchandise from AI-native rivals like Anthropic’s Claude Design. Google’s entry into this area exhibits that AI-powered design is shortly changing into a core aggressive space, and comes with important dangers for any enterprise that depends on visible content material.

Google says the brand new app is being rolled out to a gaggle of testers at I/O and will likely be accessible to Google AI Extremely subscribers this summer season.

The corporate acknowledges that whereas in the present day’s AI fashions can produce high-quality photographs, it’s nonetheless tough to vary solely a part of the picture. When you get a near-perfect picture however need to change some particulars, you may need to create a very new immediate and hope the AI would not change it an excessive amount of. So Pics not solely generates photographs, but additionally lets you simply edit them.

The consumer enters the immediate and Pics generates what is required. Gemini powers enhancing layers that can help you absolutely regulate each component of the generated designs and pictures. You may create a brand new immediate to make adjustments, however it’s also possible to depart a remark by clicking on the half you need to change, identical to leaving suggestions on a Google Doc.

You can too edit straight with out leaving feedback or writing prompts. For instance, for those who create a party invitation and need to change the time listed on the cardboard, you possibly can change it manually.

Pics is powered by Nano Banana 2, which Google says is right for the app as a result of it helps correct textual content rendering, real-world information, and detailed visible output. Pics can be constructed natively into Google Workspace, enabling visible collaboration throughout apps.

When you’re comfortable along with your design, you possibly can obtain, copy, print, or share it with others. Google says it’s also possible to hand it off to another person for remaining edits earlier than publishing.