One 12-Hour Shift, 80,000 Fans, and the AI Tech That's Changing the Game

When I do something, I go all in.

I’m obsessed with what makes a live event unforgettable, so when the Savannah Bananas brought their traveling "barnstorming" team to Chicago, just buying a ticket wasn’t an option. In true GoGo form, I had to see the magic from the inside and immerse. Signing up for the GAME DAY CREW happened without a second of hesitation and I roped my 15 year old son in to the plan.

We jumped in on the second day for a grueling 12-hour shift. I personally SOLD thousands of dollars in merchandise and saw the "Fans First" philosophy from the inside. (I spent 3x more than I made on Bananas merch myself). The exhaustion was real, but my mind was racing. The second we got in the car, I fired up Audible and started Jesse Cole's book, "Fans First, Entertain Always." I finished it the next day. Talk about obsessed. From my unique perspective as an "insider" merch slinger, I saw the passion AND a few of the bottlenecks. So, I did what I do: I fired up Gemini and built an entire AI-driven plan to amplify that experience. I didn't sleep much that weekend...:) So, Jesse Cole, if you're reading this, the plan is already built. Let's talk. I've got a potassium-filled strategy session with your name on it. Call me.

Monday, it was back to reality and my work as AI Specialist at Google. Every day here feels like Christmas with something new to unwrap. And just as I'm swimming in all these "Fans First" ideas, BOOM! A RIPE project stealthily hits the internal scene codenamed "Nano Banana."

You can't make this up. I "AI" like it's my job, because it IS my job. Now, fast forward to this past week and "Nano Banana" is announced publically as Gemini 2.5 Flash Image, a revolutionary new AI model. But to truly appreciate it, you have to understand the genius under the hood. Help me understand this Gemini!

Let's Go Deeper: The Tech That Makes it Bananas

For my fellow tech-obsessed AI enthusiasts, here's where it gets really vitamin-rich. This isn't just an incremental update; it's a fundamental architectural leap. Some of you might be thinking, "We can already do character consistency with things like LoRA tuning." And you're right. But that's like comparing a custom-written cookbook to having a Michelin-star chef on call. I know, it always comes back to a food analogy for me. Let me explain what I researched and learned that makes this so amazing.

The Leap from Training-Time to Inference-Time LoRA (Low-Rank Adaptation) is a training-time solution. It's powerful, but it requires an AI team to "fine-tune" a model by training a small "adapter" on 15-20 images of a character. You end up with a static, custom model file for that one character. Want a new character? You have to train a new model. Gemini 2.5 Flash is an inference-time solution, and this changes everything. You don't train anything. At the moment you want to create an image, you provide a single reference photo. The model analyzes it on the fly and creates a temporary, high-fidelity "Identity Vector." It has learned the essence of your character for that single, dynamic conversation.

The Strategic Impact: Brand Power Without the Hassle This leap from a static, training-based process to a dynamic, "live" one is the revolution. In the past, achieving brand consistency required a dedicated AI team, significant budget for fine-tuning, and complex infrastructure to manage all the custom models.

Gemini 2.5 Flash eliminates that entire barrier. A marketing team can now provide a reference image of their mascot and instantly direct them in new scenes, with perfect consistency. You get the power of a custom-tuned model without the cost, time, or complexity. This democratizes high-end creative production, allowing entire organizations to generate brand-safe campaigns at the speed of thought. It's a shift from a one-to-one system (1 LoRA file = 1 character) to a dynamic, many-to-one system (1 base model = infinite characters).

I learn by doing. To prove it, I did just that. I used the photo of myself post Bananas game standing on RATE FIELD and, with a few conversational prompts, "Nano Banana" turned me into a banana, then into me wearing a yellow tuxedo. No tuning, no waiting. Just pure, creative dialogue. I just told it what I wanted and then changed it a few times to get to where I was going....

The Future is in Your Hands: How to Go Bananas

I’ve had the privilege of guest lecturing at a few colleges and yesterday at Full Sail University. I was thrilled to help get Gemini Pro into the hands of their media students for a full year, free. Have a student, check this out! The future of media will be built by them. But you can get started right now. For the Quick-Start Creative: The fastest way to play is with Google AI Studio. Go try it! For my Builders and Enterprise CPG and Retail Clients: Vertex AI is your playground to build and scale these models with the proper protections, security and indemnifications you need at scale.

One more bonus.... if you aren't experimenting at labs.google.com you are missing out. Soon you will be able to "Past Forward" - a project in preproduction and throw yourself into your 1950 or 80s era. Check this out. You're welcome.

Share Your Masterpiece! Once you create something amazing, share it on LinkedIn and tag me!

This article was OF COURSE co-created with the assistance of Google's AI, inspired by a long day on my feet, my son Gavin, Jesse Cole's "Fans First" philosophy, and a little bit of AI magic. No rotten bananas... just for educational purposes only. Oh and I am NOT affiliated with the Savannah Bananas, just a fan that pitched in to perpetuate the magic they are brewing up.