GPT Image 2 & Smarter Creative Buddy - May 3, 2026

🎨 GPT Image 2

You can now generate characters with AI in story mode — something you simply couldn't do before. Powered by GPT Image 2, it's awesome.

What's new:

Generate full character standees from a description. Clean linework, polished shading, the character fully in frame from head to toes on a clean background — drop it straight into your story.
Reference images for consistency. Drop one or more reference images into the Imagine dialog and the AI keeps your character's design and art style consistent across generations. Generate a character once, then use that result as a reference for every later cover, scene, or pose — no more "wait, why does she suddenly have a different hair color?"
Brand-new background generation. A new image type for wide cinematic landscapes with no characters in them — exactly what you want for story scenes. Tuned for atmospheric backgrounds in the Key/Studio Ghibli vein, with no accidental human silhouettes or UI clutter.
Sharper story covers that look like real light-novel covers — clean composition, refined coloring, no random text or borders sneaking in.

GPT Image 2 — character generation with reference images

🤝 Creative Buddy Can Now Generate Images

The Creative Buddy panel can now generate images for you directly in the conversation. Ask it for a cover or a character portrait and it'll fire off the right kind of generation and slot the result into your story.

It's also better at co-editing — when you manually tweak something between turns, the buddy notices and works from your latest version instead of its own outdated picture of things.

Creative Buddy generating an image

✂️ Remove Background on Custom Images

Uploaded your own character art with a busy background? Open the Custom Image tab in the editor, pick the image, and hit Remove background. The AI strips it out so the character can be displayed cleanly on top of your story scene.

🐛 Bug Fixes & Polish

Lots of small improvements across the app — smoother interactions, better stability, and quality-of-life fixes throughout chat, the editor, and the desktop companion.