AI-generated image misrepresented as leaders' selfie at BRICS Summit

TDT | Manama

Email: mail@newsofbahrain.com

World leaders travelled to India for the BRICS annual summit in September 2026, but a picture circulating online that appears to show them gathering for a selfie during the conference is AI-generated. The image shows a former Iranian president who died years ago and presidents who were not present at the event, while OpenAI's detection tool has flagged it was made with the tech giant's AI model.

"A single photo has taken the entire world by storm!" reads a Bengali-language Facebook post shared on September 13, 2026.

The attached image appears to show Russian President Vladimir Putin taking a selfie with the heads of state of other BRICS member nations.

It was shared elsewhere on Facebook, Instagram and X following the 18th BRICS Summit hosted in the Indian capital New Delhi on September 12 and 13, where leaders from the bloc discussed ways to foster "inclusive global growth".

They also issued a joint statement calling for "maximum restraint" in the Middle East war as it "does not serve the common interests of the international community".

BRICS was created in 2009 by Brazil, China, Russia and India as a forum for major emerging economies seeking greater influence in institutions dominated by Western powers. It was soon joined by South Africa and was further expanded to include countries such as Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which hold widely divergent positions on the war in the Middle East.

But the circulating image was not taken during the BRICS Summit in New Delhi.

AI-generated image The picture shows certain leaders -- such as Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan -- who were not present at the summit, according to the list of participants published by the Indian Ministry of External Affairs.

Brazil's Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira and Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan attended the summit instead, while no delegation from Turkey was present.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian was at the summit, but the picture instead shows Ebrahim Raisi, a former president who died in a helicopter crash in 2024.

Furthermore, the BRICS logo and the phrase used in the image differ from those used at the 2026 New Delhi summit, as seen in handout photos distributed by AFP.

OpenAI's image verification tool detected an invisible SynthID watermark in the image, indicating the image was generated using the company's AI tools. AFP has previously fact-checked a similar claim about BRICS in Arabic.