SINGAPORE, 10 September 2025 — ByteDance, the parent company behind TikTok, has launched Seedream 4.0, a new AI-powered image generation and editing tool it claims surpasses the capabilities of Google DeepMind’s widely praised “Nano Banana” (officially Gemini 2.5 Flash Image) in multiple performance metrics.
According to a post by ByteDance’s AI research arm, Seedream 4.0 demonstrated superior results during internal testing using their proprietary MagicBench benchmark—scoring higher than Gemini in areas such as prompt adherence, semantic alignment, and visual aesthetics. Though promising, these results have not been made publicly available via peer-reviewed technical documentation.
AI benchmarking firm Artificial Analysis described Seedream 4.0 as a “significant evolution” over its predecessors, combining the text-to-image fluency of Seedream 3.0 with the advanced editing features of SeedEdit 3.0. Impressively, ByteDance has kept the service’s pricing unchanged, at US$30 per 1,000 generations, despite the enhanced functionality.
The announcement sets up Seedream 4.0 as a direct competitor to Google’s Nano Banana, which has gained viral popularity for its ability to deliver consistent and high-fidelity edits—especially with self-portraits and imaginative prompts. Google hails Nano Banana for transforming user experience within the Gemini app by enabling seamless multi-image edits while preserving image realism.
As tech giants race to innovate in AI-driven creative tools, Seedream 4.0 reinforces ByteDance’s push into generative AI—challenging established norms and adding pressure to a rapidly expanding field of image editing and creative AI applications.
