Viral Selfie of Putin, Modi and Xi at BRICS Summit Confirmed as AI-Generated

A photograph circulating widely online, appearing to show Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other world leaders taking a selfie together at a BRICS summit in New Delhi, is artificial intelligence-generated, according to a fact-check published by France 24.

The France 24 verification team, in a segment presented by fact-checker Vedika Bahl, reported that the image carries a SynthID watermark, a digital marker used to identify content produced by artificial intelligence tools developed by OpenAI.

According to the report, the image also contains factual inconsistencies that indicate it was fabricated. Several leaders shown in the photograph, including Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, did not attend the summit depicted, France 24 said.

A separate AI-generated image examined in the same report features former Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter crash in 2024, further underscoring the fabricated nature of the visuals, according to the fact-check.

France 24 said both images were shared extensively across social media platforms, and that the fabricated selfie was even circulated by official embassy accounts, lending it an appearance of authenticity despite its artificial origin.

The fact-check did not specify which embassy accounts shared the image or provide further details on the extent of its spread. France 24 said its verification relied on digital watermark analysis and cross-referencing attendance records of the leaders depicted.