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Google's Updated AI Image Generator Creates Photorealistic Pictures With Legible Text

Imagen 3 debuted at Google's developers event this week.

Lisa Lacy Lead AI Writer
Lisa joined CNET after more than 20 years as a reporter and editor. Career highlights include a 2020 story about problematic brand mascots, which preceded historic name changes, and going viral in 2021 after daring to ask, "Why are cans of cranberry sauce labeled upside-down?" She has interviewed celebrities like Serena Williams, Brian Cox and Tracee Ellis Ross. Anna Kendrick said her name sounds like a character from Beverly Hills, 90210. Rick Astley asked if she knew what Rickrolling was. She lives outside Atlanta with her son, two golden retrievers and two cats.
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Google announced Imagen 3, the latest version of its image generation model, at its I/O developer event on Tuesday.

Imagen 3 yields more photorealistic images, including details like sunlight or whiskers on animals. It also remembers to include smaller details like wildflowers or birds in longer prompts.

Throughout 2024 so far, we've seen a flurry of image and video generation models from the likes of OpenAI, Adobe and Google itself as they seek to expand chatbots far beyond text and win over users. 

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According to Douglas Eck, senior research director at Google, Imagen 3 is Google's best model yet for rendering text, which has been a challenge for image generation models.

"It understands prompts written the way people write," he said. "The more creative and detailed you are, the better."

The latest version also generates fewer distorted images.

It follows the release of Imagen 2 in December 2023.

Signups for access to Imagen 3 open today and it will be coming soon to developers and enterprise customers in Vertex AI.

This is a developing story.

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