Definition: AI image generator

Software that creates a realistic or fantasy image from a text prompt; for example, "draw a cat eating a horse." Multimodal chatbots such as ChatGPT and Gemini can generate images; however, Craiyon (DALL-E Mini), Stable Diffusion, Midjourney, NightCafe, Dream by Wimbo and DALL-E 2 are examples of dedicated AI image generators, which became popular in the early 2020s. Google introduced Nano Banana in 2025, which is used to alter existing images (see Nano Banana). See Dream Studio, DALL-E, Leonardo AI, Microsoft Designer.

In the training phase, image generators obtain their base of art from licensed collections as well as public images from websites. The primary approach to AI image generation is the diffusion method (see AI diffusion). Contrast with AI video generator and AI text generator.

Happy Computer!

Using a Web browser, these results came from three online generators after entering only the words "Happy Computer." Needless to say, the AI algorithms used were quite different. All generators have some amount of user configuration and expansion, but these three examples used only default settings.