Google Reverses Decision on AI Modification of Google Earth Satellite Imagery Amid Misinformation Concerns

Google briefly allowed anyone to create AI-modified versions of satellite imagery available in Google Earth—before quickly reversing its decision as people shared examples of AI-generated pictures that illustrated the potential for misinformation and disinformation.

There is no shortage of generative AI tools that already allow people to create AI-modified images of real buildings and cities based on user prompts. But Google’s aborted attempt to incorporate its Nano Banana 2 AI image generator as a Google Earth feature made it even easier for anyone to create modified versions of authentic imagery depicting real locations—something that Google boasted about when initially promoting the new feature.

“For the first time, you can generate custom images using Google Earth’s satellite, aerial, and 3D imagery alongside Nano Banana, which creates concepts grounded in the real world,” wrote Bryan Horowitz, product manager for Google Earth, in a company blog post on July 30.

That possibility deeply alarmed researchers, who often use Google Earth to help verify images and videos of locations at a time when AI-generated misinformation and disinformation have become rampant online. They showed how the new feature could simplify the process of creating false scenarios overlaid on Google Earth’s photorealistic imagery.

“Google Earth, a tool often used as a source of satellite imagery to verify photos and videos, has added a feature that allows you to alter satellite imagery with AI, for reasons,” wrote Eliot Higgins, founder of the independent investigative organization Bellingcat, in a Bluesky post responding to the AI feature’s debut.

“No way this could be abused,” Higgins added sarcastically in a follow-up post that featured an AI-modified image made in Google Earth showing a giant golden statue of President Donald Trump looming over the White House.

Within a day, Google announced on the social media platform X that it was rolling back the feature. Shortly afterward, Ars checked and found that the feature was inaccessible to Google Earth users.

Before removing the AI feature, Google had touted its potential to allow Google Earth users to depict completed real estate projects or enable teachers and students to transform the modern-day ruins of Pompeii into a “hyper-realistic view” of what the town looked like in 78 CE under the Roman Empire. But independent researchers immediately gravitated toward the potential for misuse.

“Tonight I typed just one sentence into Google Earth and put refugees near the Mexican border,” wrote Henk van Ess, an independent investigator, in an extensive blog post detailing his concerns on July 30. “Then I planted a nuclear plant in Iran. Then I put a fatal crash on a street in Amsterdam. Google’s own satellite imagery underneath all three. What on earth is Google doing?”

Checking for misinformation

Ess pointed to a previous example of AI-generated misinformation gone viral that used a Google Earth satellite photo of the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet headquarters in Manama, Bahrain. A forger had prompted Google’s Gemini AI assistant to transform a screenshot of that Google Earth image into a false image depicting the aftermath of an Iranian drone strike on the US military base.

The same process that might have taken about six steps could be done “in seconds” with the AI tool built into Google Earth, Ess said.

Before eventually removing the Google Earth feature, Google initially responded to Ess by highlighting its SynthID system that automatically embeds digital watermarks in images generated by Google’s AI tools.

“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,” according to Google’s post on X on July 30. “In addition, we prevent image creation on harmful topics and are continually updating our protections.”

Previous Ars testing of Google’s SynthID system has shown that Google’s digital watermark can persist despite substantial image edits and data loss. However, Ars also encountered the issue of SynthID limiting image checks to about 10 per day.

When Ars prompted Google’s Gemini app to run a SynthID check on several AI-modified images generated within Google Earth—before Google removed the Google Earth feature—Gemini responded that it had “detected digital watermarking indicating that part or all of this image was generated or edited using Google AI tools.”

But Ess questioned why Google’s policy on preventing the creation of AI-generated images on harmful topics had not stopped him from depicting scenes such as a hospital with a bomb crater in Gaza. He also expressed skepticism about primarily relying on Google’s SynthID watermarking system and Google’s AI tools for verifying whether an image is AI-generated.

“Fakes do not travel as clean files with their credentials intact,” Ess wrote. “They travel as screen recordings, re-encodes, screenshots of screenshots, filmed off somebody’s phone in a hurry.”

Indeed, Google’s SynthID was unable to provide any image verification when Ars used a smartphone camera to take a photo of an AI-altered image made using the Google Earth feature.

Undermining trust

By introducing an AI image generator as a Google Earth feature, Google risked undermining public trust in Google Earth as a reliable reference for providing authentic imagery of the real world, Ess said. It could have also handed an additional excuse to government officials or anyone who wants to deny genuine satellite photos by claiming they were modified or generated entirely by AI tools.

Giving anyone access to an easy tool to create AI-modified satellite imagery could have also made it even harder for journalists and researchers checking misinformation and disinformation. Ess recommended using multiple sources to verify satellite imagery and relying on constantly updated satellite imagery sources such as Europe’s Copernicus Sentinel-2.

Google may have alleviated immediate concerns by deciding to quickly remove the AI tool within Google Earth—but its statement suggested that the company could eventually bring the feature back in the future.

“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,” according to the Google statement. “So we’re rolling back this feature in Google Earth while we work on implementing stronger guardrails.”