Google Rolls Back AI Satellite Image Generation Feature on Google Earth Amid Disinformation Concerns

In less than a day after Google unveiled a new feature that allowed users to create AI-generated satellite images with the click of a button on its Google Earth platform, the company announced it was removing the tool. Google has rolled back the new feature that allowed Google Earth users to generate AI visualizations on top of the service's satellite imagery. The roll back comes in less than 24 hours after concerns from researchers and open-source intelligence experts about disinformation risks that the feature raised. The "create image" tool, rolled out Thursday (July 30), integrates Google's Nano Banana 2 image-generation technology to let users zoom into locations and build images in seconds based on Google Earth satellite, aerial and 3D-mapping data. In its initial announcement of the new feature on Thursday, the company said it was designed to work with users' imaginations: "Just zoom in to a place in Google Earth on web (sic), tap 'create image,' and type whatever you want to see," Bryan Horowitz, a product manager wrote.

In a statement announcing the company's decision to pause the feature, Google said, "We know that people uniquely trust Google Earth for a reliable view of the world. We’ve seen geospatial professionals using this feature for a range of useful purposes, however we’ve also seen people sharing screenshots of generated imagery that appear to violate our policies. So we’re rolling back this feature in Google Earth while we work on implementing stronger guardrails. It's important to note that generated images didn’t appear in the main Google Earth experience for others to see and were watermarked as AI generated."

Raising alarm on the feature, Henk van Ess, an open-source researcher, wrote on X, "I tried refugees at the Mexican border, a nuclear plant in Iran, a crash in Amsterdam, a hospital with a bomb crater in Gaza. Nothing was refused." Brady Africk, a research analyst at the American Enterprise Institute specializing in satellite imagery analysis, told AFP the Google Earth update "makes it easier to generate convincing fake satellite imagery that can spread quickly online and mislead the public. " "These AI-generated fakes, growing more common, may also erode public trust in satellite imagery, and make the jobs of journalists and researchers more difficult." In a response to AFP and Ess on X, Google said that the images created with the feature include SynthID digital watermarks, invisible markers embedded in media generated using the company's artificial intelligence tools. Users can ask Google's Gemini chatbot if a SynthID is present. "We take misinformation seriously – every image created with Nano Banana in Google Earth includes the SynthID digital watermark, so if someone is unsure about an image, they can ask the Gemini app or use Lens in Search to see if the image was AI-generated. In addition, we prevent image creation on harmful topics and are continually updating our protections," wrote Google.