Gemini tops the App Store thanks to new AI image model, Nano Banana (techcrunch.com)

Google’s Gemini app surged to the top of the App Store after the August release of Nano Banana, a new image-editor model that users say makes complex edits and photorealistic image creation much easier. App intelligence firm Appfigures reports a 45% month-over-month download increase in September so far: Gemini has already pulled in 12.6 million downloads this month (up from 8.7 million in August) and climbed to No. 1 on the U.S. App Store on Sept. 12, displacing OpenAI’s ChatGPT. On Android, Gemini jumped from No. 26 to No. 2 in the U.S., though ChatGPT still leads on Google Play. Google’s VP Josh Woodward said Nano Banana attracted 23 million first-time users who have shared over 500 million images. The shift matters because it shows how a focused, high-quality generative image model can drive massive mainstream adoption, engagement and monetization—Gemini has generated $6.3M on iOS year-to-date, with $1.6M in August alone (a 1,291% increase from January). Key technical implications include the appetite for on-device or mobile-optimized image-generation workflows, increased content volume that raises moderation and infrastructure costs, and competitive pressure on other AI apps to ship specialized multimodal capabilities. The rapid user growth and image-sharing scale also underscore priorities for model efficiency, safety controls, and product integration in the broader AI/ML ecosystem.