Here’s the problem with putting an AI image generator in Google Earth

Even with Google’s watermarks and restrictions, a tool that created believable flyover images was ripe for misuse, as Henk van Ess demonstrated.

A text prompt was all it took to generate reality-warping images using Google Earth’s satellite, aerial, and 3D imagery with a now-rolled back AI feature , like these images generated by Digital Digging ’s Henk van Ess that show “refugees near the Mexican border” and a bomb crater near a hospital in Gaza.

Google initially responded to Digital Digging ’s AI-altered images, saying, “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 to using Google’s “@verifyai” tag in Gemini to check suspicious images, van Ess suggests comparing them to other satellite platforms, like Sentinel-2 or Landsat , and even verifying orbital data like when it says the image was taken and by which satellite.

The feature launched globally on the web version of Google Earth earlier this week, and Google’s blog post pitched it as a tool for visualizing historical sites and real estate projects. Some images generated with it were easy to spot as fakes, like one showing the Sphinx crossed with the Statue of Liberty , but I can see how the Nano Banana 2 feature could have created images believable enough to spread misinformation. And while Google’s watermark may be difficult to remove , it’s not impossible to miss or bypass – Digital Digging was able to fool Hive’s AI detector with an AI-altered video from Google Earth.

Update, July 31st: After publication, Google announced it’s rolling back the feature .