We and our partners do the following data processing based on your consent: store and/or access information on a device, personalised advertising and content, advertising and content measurement, audience research and services development Viral Putin, Modi and Xi selfie at BRICS summit is AI-generated To display this content from YouTube, you must enable advertisement tracking and audience measurement. One of your browser extensions seems to be blocking the video player from loading. To watch this content, you may need to disable it on this site.
A viral selfie allegedly showing Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Narendra Modi and other leaders together at the BRICS summit in New Delhi is AI-generated. A SynthID watermark shows it was created using OpenAI tools, while several leaders pictured, including Brazil’s Lula and Turkey’s Erdogan, 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. The BRICS 2026 summit in New Delhi brought together leaders from some of the world’s major emerging economies, as the bloc pushes for a greater role in global affairs. But amid the official summit images, two unofficial selfies have gone viral, falsely portraying world leaders together and fuelling claims of BRICS unity.
Russia’s embassy in South Africa shared the photo with the message “BRICS is a superpower”, with the post receiving millions of views. Official Iranian embassy accounts in India and Armenia also shared the image. One of the selfies appears to show Russian President Vladimir Putin taking a selfie alongside the BRICS world leaders: Chinese President Xi Jinping, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi,Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian is also present in the "selfie", alongside alongside leaders from Egypt, Ethiopia and Indonesia, as well as Abu Dhabi’s President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed. The picture contains an invisible digital watermark known as SynthID, which indicates that it was created using OpenAI tools. Lula did not attend the BRICS summit.
Brazil was instead represented by Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira, who was pictured with Modi at the event. And while Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed is shown in the selfie, Abu Dhabi was represented at the summit by Crown Prince Sheikh Khaled bin Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. A second AI-generated selfie claiming to show BRICS leaders together has also circulated online.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
