Nano Banana AI will be built into this unusual new mirrorless camera

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Google's Gemini AI, better known by its codename Nano Banana, is coming to a mirrorless camera for the first time. Caira is an interchangeable lens camera that attaches to an iPhone with MagSafe and integrates Nano Banana for in-camera generative editing.

Camera Intelligence – the startup behind Alice Camera – teased the Caira, an unusual mirrorless camera that's built around AI, an iPhone interface and a MagSafe connection. The Caira is slated to arrive on Kickstarter on October 30.

Caira is the first mirrorless camera to integrate Nanao Banana for in-camera generative editing. The company says that this enables users to use generative editing at the point of capture, right after taking the photo, by using text-based prompts.

Camera Intelligence says Nano Banana can handle anything from adding a necklace to a portrait to changing a daytime photo to night.

The Caira, however, doesn't have a screen; instead, it uses MagSafe to connect to an iPhone . A dedicated iPhone app controls the camera's settings and creates the user interface for using those generative AI edits.

If the idea of a Micro Four Thirds camera that uses an iPhone as the interface sounds familiar, that's because the leadership team from Camera Intelligence is the same group that launched Alice Camera – a mirrorless camera that similarly used an iPhone screen as the interface.

"With Caira, we are not just launching a new camera; we are introducing a new, intelligent creative partner," Vishal Kumar, CEO of Camera Intelligence, said.

"Creators need more than just great image quality – they need speed, flexibility and tools that match the pace of their imagination. By integrating Nano Banana directly into Caira, we are collapsing traditional content creation workflows; we aim to fundamentally shift how creators capture, edit and share our world."

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The company has not shared full specifications for the Caira camera, but indicates that it has a Micro Four Thirds sensor and mount. The camera's AI runs on Qualcomm Snapdragon and Google Edge TPU chips, has a 5,000mAh battery and, along with giving the iPhone a larger sensor, also includes a larger, more traditional hand grip.

The company says the camera will support voice control to make changes and take selfies. Caira will have six pre-loaded styles, along with the option to generate presets with AI.

The teaser for Caira answers some of the questions surrounding the startup's previously announced plans for a camera with AI editing and voice control . But, with the camera coming to crowdfunding later this month and full specifications yet to be shared, a number of questions remain.

Generative AI has divided the creative community between those excited to save some time at tedious tasks and those concerned over the future of creativity, the ethics of AI training and the impact on the job market.

Nanao Banana in particular, has earned viral fame for its ability to generate AI images that still look like a real person . However, Google trained Gemini on publicly available data from the internet , including photos on the web and video from YouTube, creating copyright and ethics concerns among many creators.

Camera Intelligence notes that the AI will have some protections, including preventing users from altering skin tone, ethnicity, and core facial features. Camera Intelligence says that the AI model name and the prompt used will be added to the image's metadata for clarity.

"Despite the skepticism surrounding generative AI, we believe photographers shouldn't fear it," Kumar said. "Thoughtful integration of this has the potential to be truly helpful.

"We chose Google's Nano Banana because it's the best model we've seen for maintaining consistent character details and seamlessly blending new edits while preserving the original image's optical quality. Its one-shot editing capability is also exceptional, frequently delivering perfect results in a single attempt without unwanted hallucinations. It truly feels like magic."

Caira, the company says, is designed for a shoot-and-share workflow without a laptop. The company touts the AI camera as a tool for both creators and businesses.

Camera Intelligence plans to launch Caira via crowdfunding, with the Kickstarter campaign set to go live on October 30.

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