Google Images is Getting a Makeover for Its 25th Birthday
For years, internet users navigating to images.google.com have been greeted by a mostly blank screen with a search bar in the middle — that will soon no longer be the case.
To mark 25 years of its existence, Google Images is embracing a Pinterest-type homepage for the service that will feature “a dynamic, immersive gallery of images from across the web — updated in real time and intelligently tailored to your unique interests.”
Users can browse the images and save them to collections that will appear as tabs above the main gallery. This, Google says, will “make it easy to jump back in and continue exploring based on what inspires you.”
The update will roll out over the coming weeks on desktop in the U.S. in English. Users must be signed in to their Google Account to try it out.
Also new in Google Images is the ability to generate AI images in AI overviews using its Nano Banana 2 Lite AI model.
“Sometimes, the perfect image is out there on the web, waiting to be found. But other times you might have a highly specific vision where an image doesn’t yet exist,” Google says.
“To help bring those unique ideas to life, we’re bringing image generation directly into AI Overviews in Search. Using our latest Nano Banana model, this update transforms a simple text prompt into a high-quality, custom visual made completely from scratch, seamlessly bridging the gap between imagination and reality.”
The company says that image generation in AI Overviews will start to roll out over the coming weeks in English, for all regions that currently support image creation in AI Mode.
Google Images was founded in 2001 after the green dress that Jennifer Lopez wore to the 2000 Grammys “broke the internet.” But back then, Google was nothing but blue links.
“People wanted more than just text,” former Google CEO Eric Schmidt said back in 2015. “This first became apparent after the 2000 Grammy Awards, where Jennifer Lopez wore a green dress that, well, caught the world’s attention. At the time, it was the most popular search query we had ever seen. But we had no surefire way of getting users exactly what they wanted: JLo wearing that dress. Google Image Search was born.”
Image creditsCourtesy of Google.