Viral Putin, Modi and Xi selfie at BRICS summit is AI-generated

A viral selfie allegedly showing leaders including, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra at the BRICS summit in New Delhi is AI-generated. A SynthID watermark shows it was created using OpenAI tools. Several leaders pictured, including Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, did not attend. Another AI selfie features former Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi, who died in 2024. Both images were widely shared online, including by official embassy accounts. Vedika Bahl fact-checks.