Anthony Albanese’s arrival at a Californian airport the weekend before the United Nations meeting in New York prompted posts from critics who shared an AI-generated image supposedly showing no one was there to welcome the Australian leader. The image does not match details seen in live video coverage of the prime minister’s arrival at San Jose airport, and carries an invisible watermark identifying it as created by OpenAI tools. An airport representative also told AFP the image was not taken at the airport in San Jose.
“A wider angle at the absolute humiliation suffered by our PM Anthony Albanese at San Jose airport yesterday,” says the caption of an image shared on September 20, 2026 by a Melbourne-based user in a Facebook group critical of the Australian leader and his ruling Labor party.
Calling Albanese’s lonely reception a “snubbing”, the post — which was shared more than 400 times — carried an image of the prime minister walking away from a plane, with nobody else on the tarmac.
“A picture says a thousand words,” the post says. “Well done, Americans.”
Screenshot of the false post captured on September 22, 2026, with a red X and AI tag added by AFP
Albanese flew to California on September 19 to meet with Apple’s former CEO Tim Cook to discuss Australia’s child online safety laws and greater regulation of AI-generated content ( archived link).
Australia implemented legislation barring under-16s from social media platforms last year, part of a world-first crackdown designed to protect children from online bullying and “predatory algorithms”.
New draft laws unveiled in September would place a “duty of care” requirement on the firms behind popular platforms such as Facebook, TikTok and Instagram — as well as allow users to turn off their algorithms if they want to.
The California leg of the prime minister’s trip came before a UN meeting of world leaders, scheduled from September 22 to 29 in New York.
According to coverage from Australian news channel 9News, Albanese’s welcome party at San Jose Mineta International Airport — a 15-minute drive to Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino — appeared to be a modest affair, with just Australian ambassador to the United States, Greg Moriarty, greeting him ( archived link).
People sharing the image of Albanese purportedly walking across the tarmac appeared to believe it to be genuine, with one commenting: “That says it all!!!!! So bad when a super power turns their back on our PM.”
Similar claims — which also appeared in X posts — were shared by social media users in New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and Indonesia.
But the circulating image is AI-generated.
According to 9News footage, the area in which Albanese’s plane parked had a number of vehicles behind it, as well as a fence. Behind the fence, there is a road where cars can be seen driving by as the prime minister speaks on camera at the 35-second mark and the 1:27 mark ( archived link).
Comparison of the AI-generated image (L) and screenshots of the live footage of the Australian PM stepping off the plane and greeting the ambassador, with vehicles, a fence and a road behind him
There are also visual discrepancies in the AI image, such as how the shadow of the passenger boarding stairs does not appear to meet with the plane’s shadow.
The number and appearance of the plane’s windows also do not match those in photos taken and published by the Australian Associated Press (archived here and here).
Screenshot comparison of the AI image (L), with the discrepancy of the shadows and the number of windows highlighted in red by AFP, and a photo of Albanese alighting from his plane published by the Australian Associated Press
A representative of San Jose airport — whose airport code is SJC — confirmed that the circulating image “is not at SJC” ( archived link).
“The media screenshots with the chyrons are the correct background for where the aircraft parked at South Cargo,” they told AFP in an email on September 22, referring to the 9News coverage.
Running the image through OpenAI’s verification platform also showed that it has “a SynthID watermark that originated from OpenAI” ( archived link).
The invisible watermarks are designed to withstand alterations such as cropping and filtering.
Screenshot of results from OpenAI’s verification platform
AFP has previously fact-checked other AI-generated content of the Australian prime minister.