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Welcome to the Friday edition of our newsletter. We spend Friday’s going deeper into tools and trends related to generative AI (and Tuesdays sharing news updates). This week we’re marveling at what we can do with AI images in 2026.

📚 Join us for two Gen AI Workshops

Feb. 27: Hands-On With Generative AI - Are you ready to actually build things with generative AI? Sign up for our Hands-On With Generative AI Workshop at Drake University (or attend virtually) and complete six AI projects in six hours.

March 25: Google Gemini Virtual Workshop - Join us for a three hour deep dive to master the latest Google Gemini tools, including Nano Banana, NotebookLM, Gems, Deep Research and more. Sign up by March 11 for the early bird rate.

🥨 FREE AI Lunch Club continues

• Feb. 23 - Building Microsoft Copilot Agents

• March 4 - Vibe coding with Claude, ChatGPT and Lovable

AL Lunch Club events are offered free thanks to a sponsorship from technology and management consultancy, Lean TECHniques.

What a year for AI images

We're teaching about generative AI images in our AI class at Drake University this week (and next week), which for us is a great reminder of exactly how far AI images have come in one year.

Last year, we were exploring artistic styles, trying to get AI tools to follow more than two things in our prompts, counting how many fingers were on hands and marveling at the inpainting and editing features of Midjourney and Adobe Firefly.

Oh how things have changed.

Keep reading for 9 things you can do with AI images that we could not do one year ago.

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9 thing we couldn’t do with AI images one year ago

1. Get accurate text

Sure we could get some accurate text last year with Ideogram in particular. But ChatGPT images changed the game in March 2026 when it came to accurate text. Here’s an example I made back then that showed off the change.

2. Add your face to an AI image

We used to get generic people in our AI images. Now you can upload a photo and have the model place your actual face into entirely new scenes, styles, and scenarios while keeping it recognizable and realistic.

3. Use ingredients / Combine multiple images

You can now upload multiple images and ask the model to blend them together. Take the background from one, the lighting from another, the subject from a third, and combine them into one coherent image.

4. Make graphics

ChatGPT’s image model could render text accurately, allowing us to make graphics like this one last March.

5. Serious, really great infographics

ChatGPT improved throughout the year, but it was Nano Banana from Google Gemini that really stepped up the game. Here’s an example of a weather graphic showing the forecast in a miniature version of Des Moines.

Here’s ChatGPT’s version using GPT 5.2 Thinking.

6. Graphics that use the power of search

Nano Banana Pro added the ability to use Google search to get accurate information for graphics, like this one from Iowa’s basketball win over Nebraska this week. I asked for an “Instagram-style graphic.”

7. Edit images with a prompt

Upload an image and describe the changes you want to see made. Nano Banana can keep all the elements the same except for the ons you want changed. Here, I asked to make the water bottle yellow.

8. Create consistent characters

Want to see the same person in different scenes? Modern models can maintain facial features, clothing details, and style across multiple images so your character actually feels like the same individual every time.

9. Create sequential art

Build on character consistency and generate multiple panels that follow a narrative arc. You can now create comics, storyboards, and visual explainers with continuity from frame to frame.

In closing…

It’s remarkable how quickly we’ve gone from counting our fingers to producing content that would have seemed out of reach not long ago. As these tools keep improving and becoming more practical, the real question is how creatively we choose to use them—in the classroom and beyond.