What Is ByteDance Seedream 4.0, Google Nano Banana’s New AI Rival, And What Can It Do?

TikTok’s parent company ByteDance has unveiled its newest artificial intelligence image model, Seedream 4.0, and it’s all set to take on the Nano Banana rage. The Seedream 4.0 update combines the text-to-image features of its predecessor, Seedream 3.0, with the image editing tools of SeedEdit 3.0.

As per ByteDance, Seedream 4.0 has surpassed Gemini 2.5 Flash, popularly referred to as Nano Banana, across multiple performance metrics in internal assessments. The AI image editing tool also performed well in prompt adherence, alignment, and aesthetics when compared with other AI models.

ByteDance said that Seedream 4.0 can “create high-quality images or make precise edits with just one single sentence.” It can change images or user’s own photos into art pieces in different styles, including watercolour, cyberpunk, and more, in seconds. According to ByteDance, some of its common use cases include:

• Designing a chart illustrating the usual vegetation layout in four climate zones: tropical rainforest, temperate forest, desert, and tundra.

• Creating a vintage-style website for an art museum, utilising an earthy colour palette and showcasing large images of the museum’s art collection.

• In a style resembling a handwritten journal, design a diagram illustrating the steps for making ice cream with explanations provided in English.

• Making a comparison chart featuring a Gothic church alongside a Baroque palace, outlining the key traits of each architectural style under their images.

• Creating a poster to raise awareness about the dangers of staying awake late.

• Users can even create timelines of historical dynasties. The Seedream 4.0 app cited an example of drawing a timeline from the Qin Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty, marking the different dynasties in clear order and with a small icon, with the characteristics of each dynasty written.

Seedream 4.0’s image editing capabilities position it to compete directly with Google’s Nano Banana, which is all the rage since its launch in August. In particular, its feature to transform a photo into a realistic 3D model within an image using a simple prompt is sweeping across the internet, with celebrities, politicians, and common users alike posting images of their 3D figurines.