OpenAI added transparent background support to gpt-image-2 on August 20 — in preview across both the Images API and the Responses API image generation tool. One new parameter, one silent failure mode on jpeg, and a preview-status caveat that matters if you have ZDR.
Google's Nano Banana 2 Lite (gemini-3.1-flash-lite-image) landed June 30 at $0.034/1K images and 4-second latency. If you are still routing to gemini-2.5-flash-image, you are on a legacy model. Here is the three-tier routing framework every image pipeline team needs.
Gemini API image generation changed in 2026: preview image models now fail after the June 25 cutoff, and Imagen 4 GA endpoints shut down August 17. Audit model IDs, swap to gemini-3.1-flash-image or gemini-3-pro-image, and test generateContent before the next incident.
DashScope made wan2.7-image-pro its recommended default: the only image endpoint with 4K output, text rendering, brand color, character consistency, and multi-image editing in one model ID. Routing decision framework vs qwen-image-2.0-pro and z-image-turbo.
DashScope is Alibaba's managed API platform for Qwen models. With qwen-image-2.0-pro, it introduces an async job pattern distinct from DALL-E: submit a request, get a task ID, poll to retrieve the result.
Official OpenAI gpt-image-2 migration checklist for teams still using gpt-image-1, gpt-image-1.5, gpt-image-1-mini, or chatgpt-image-latest before the Q4 2026 API shutdown.
