Google has withdrawn its Nano Banana image-generation feature from Google Earth less than a day after launching it, following concerns that it could create convincing but false satellite imagery. The move matters because Google Earth is widely trusted as a factual view of real places, making manipulated images particularly susceptible to misuse and misinformation.

404 Media demonstrated the tool by generating a blast crater in Los Angeles and adding protesters outside Google’s Mountain View campus. Google said generated images carried its SynthID watermark and could be checked with Gemini or Google Lens, but acknowledged that screenshots appearing to breach its policies had circulated; it says stronger safeguards will be introduced before the feature returns.