According to Digital Trends, Google has released a massive upgrade to its AI mood board app, Mixboard. The new feature, powered by Google’s Nano Banana Pro model, automatically transforms chaotic idea boards into polished, structured presentations. Users can pick between two formats, specify the presentation’s focus, and select a visual style, with the AI generating the final deck in just a few minutes. Alongside this, Google expanded upload support to include PDF, HEIC, and TIFF files, added a selfie camera, and introduced doodling tools for direct image edits. The app also now supports multiple boards per project to organize complex work. These new features are live right now on the Mixboard website, complete with sample boards to try.
From brain dump to boardroom
Here’s the thing: turning a pile of inspiration into a coherent narrative is hard work. It’s the messy, often frustrating gap between ideation and execution. This update feels like Google is trying to automate that bridge. And honestly, for quick internal reviews or early-stage pitches, it could be a huge time-saver. The fact that it pulls context directly from your board—your images, notes, links—means the presentation might actually reflect your original chaotic thinking, just cleaned up. That’s more valuable than a generic template. But I’m skeptical about the “beautifully designed” claim. With only a couple of formats and visual styles to choose from, how unique or brand-aligned can these really be? It seems like a great tool for a first draft, not a final client deliverable.
The bigger picture for Google AI
So what’s Google really doing here? Look, this isn’t just a cute feature for creatives. It’s another strategic move to embed its AI models into the entire workflow, from the earliest, most unstructured thought to a finished product. They’re positioning Nano Banana Pro as the engine that understands context and aesthetics. Basically, they’re competing with the idea that you need a separate AI tool for images, another for docs, and another for slides. They want it all to happen in one Google-flavored environment. The expansion to support more file types, especially PDFs, is a quiet but big deal—it means Mixboard is trying to become a hub for all your project assets, not just pretty pictures.
Where does this all lead?
The trajectory is clear: AI is moving from a content generator to a workflow orchestrator. It’s not just writing your text or making your image anymore. It’s structuring your process. The multi-board feature for complex projects hints at this. Can the AI eventually suggest which board items should go into which presentation slide? Probably. Could it generate different presentation versions for different audiences from the same board? Almost certainly. The real test will be if it can handle truly complex, nuanced projects. Right now, this feels geared towards speed and simplicity. But the ambition is obvious. Google is betting that the future of work isn’t just AI-assisted creation, but AI-managed context.
