Google has significantly expanded its AI capabilities with the release of Imagen 4, its most advanced text-to-image generation model, now available in paid preview through the Gemini API and Google AI Studio.
Imagen 4 represents a substantial improvement over previous versions, particularly in text rendering quality within generated images. The release includes two variants: the standard Imagen 4 model priced at $0.04 per output image, and Imagen 4 Ultra at $0.06 per image, which offers enhanced precision in following user instructions. Both models feature SynthID watermarking technology that's invisible to the human eye but helps identify AI-generated content.
This release is part of Google's broader expansion of its Gemini 2.5 family of models. The company has made Gemini 2.5 Flash and Pro generally available after successful preview periods, while introducing Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite in preview. Flash-Lite is positioned as Google's most cost-efficient and fastest 2.5 model, optimized for high-volume, latency-sensitive tasks like classification, translation, and intelligent routing.
Despite its focus on efficiency, Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite maintains the key capabilities of the 2.5 family, including a 1 million token context window and support for native tools like Google Search integration and code execution. Unlike other models in the family that have thinking capabilities enabled by default, Flash-Lite allows developers to control thinking budgets through API parameters, with thinking turned off by default to optimize for speed and cost.
Further enhancing its developer offerings, Google has released Gemini CLI, an open-source AI agent that brings Gemini directly to the terminal. This tool allows developers to access Gemini 2.5 Pro through a command-line interface for coding, problem-solving, and task management. The open-source nature of Gemini CLI (under Apache 2.0 license) enables developers to inspect the code, verify security implications, and contribute to its development.
Google's latest AI releases demonstrate its commitment to providing developers with increasingly powerful and flexible tools across different price points and use cases, from high-quality image generation to efficient text processing and terminal-based AI assistance.