Google has started rolling out Pics, its new AI image generator and editor, to Workspace business customers and Google AI Pro and Ultra subscribers.
The rollout began on September 1, and it runs on Google’s Nano Banana image model, the same engine behind recent viral image edits across Gemini and Google Photos.
Pics works as a standalone app at pics.new, and will also be built directly into Docs and Slides, where most of the daily use is likely to happen.
You can select an image in Docs or Slides, and a new option lets you hand it straight to Pics without leaving the tab or exporting it to another tool first.
Drive integration is coming in the following weeks, according to Google, at which point almost any image saved there becomes editable with a click.
The main editing tool is object segmentation, which isolates one element in a photo or graphic and changes it while everything around it stays untouched.
You can move a product into a new backdrop, swap a logo, resize a chart element, or translate on-image text into another language, all without redrawing the rest of the file.
Multiple people can also work on the same image through a shared link, mirroring how commenting and editing already work in Docs and Sheets.
How It Stacks Up
Pics enters a market already crowded with Canva, Adobe Express, and Adobe Firefly, tools that built their reputations on templates and brand kits for non-designers.
Google’s angle is distribution rather than features: Workspace already sits on the desktops of millions of businesses, so Pics does not need to win a separate download or subscription decision.
Google framed the gap it is chasing plainly in its announcement, arguing that AI image tools have been a hit for personal use but “a different story for businesses,” pointing to inconsistent results and workflows scattered across apps as the friction it wants to remove.
Where Gemini Stops and Pics Starts
Gemini can already generate and edit images through conversation, and for quick, one-off requests, that remains the faster route. Pics is built for a different job, refinement rather than a single prompt-and-done exchange.
Object segmentation lets editors change one part of an image while leaving composition, lighting, and everything else untouched, something far harder to control through chat alone.
Add shared links, team editing, and native placement inside Docs and Slides, and Pics looks less like a Gemini feature and more like a design tool built for teams producing marketing decks, product mockups, and localized campaign assets at volume.
For businesses across Kenya and the wider region deciding between Canva subscriptions and in-house design, bundling Pics with existing Workspace plans could change the equation, if the results match what Google has shown in its demos.
