Google Lens shows misleading information about images

According to Full Fact, the cases mentioned above involve videos allegedly about the war in Ukraine and Gaza, the India-Pakistan conflict, the Air India plane crash in June 2025 and immigrants coming to the UK in small boats.

Full Fact used Google Lens to search for screenshots from false videos they had fact-checked.

In at least 10 cases, the AI summaries failed to recognize fake content, even repeating misinformation similar to what was on social media.

In four examples, the AI overview repeated verbatim false claims that Full Fact had debunked. Additionally, the AI summary results could change each time it searched, even for the same image, leading to inconsistent information.

Google admits that some of these errors may occur, saying that the cause comes from image search results, not from the AI overview system.

According to Google, image search results can include web sources or social media posts that contain both matching images and false information, and that affects AI summarization.

Google says it always aims to display relevant and high-quality information, continuously improves, and when problems are detected, it will be handled according to policy.

Although Google claims that AI overview rarely “fabricates” information (also known as AI “hallucination”), it still spreads misinformation about important and sensitive issues.

For example, a viral video falsely claimed that asylum seekers were arriving at Dover Beach, England, when in fact the scene was on a beach in Goa, India. Google Lens, when searching for a screenshot of the video, summarized it as “people gathering at Dover Beach, England.”

Or some fake videos about the war in Russia - Ukraine, even images from the video game Arma 3, are described by AI overview as real without warning that this is fake content.

There is a case where the same video game but two different photos were summarized by AI as a scene of the C-RAM defense system intercepting artillery shells and a scene of a SpaceX rocket launching, absolutely not saying that this is a fake image.

Google Lens is an image search tool that allows users to search for photos or frames from videos to compare with similar images online.

Sometimes an AI summary will appear at the top of the page, aggregating relevant information from the web. Despite the warning that “AI can make mistakes,” having misinformation prominently displayed can easily mislead the public.

Full Fact recommends that Google Lens' AI overview tool be viewed as a starting point, not a substitute for manual fact-checking, and that additional reliable sources be sought for comparison.

This is not the first time Google search results have shown incorrect information. Full Fact says it has received funding from Google and Google.org in the past but maintains complete editorial independence.