AI food photos on Swiggy and Zomato becoming harder to detect
Food delivery platforms like Swiggy are facing criticism for using AI-generated images that misrepresent the actual food delivered to customers. While some platforms have implemented disclaimers, others like Zomato have actively discouraged the practice to maintain consumer trust.
Why it matters
The use of AI in marketing raises ethical concerns regarding consumer deception and the impact of synthetic media on e-commerce transparency.
The use of AI-generated food images has made it challenging for customers to tell apart realistic food items from dishes that exist only in the cook’s dreams. A regular customer knows the disappointment of opening their takeaway box to find a meal that looks nowhere near as good as it did in the thumbnail image on their app.
A quick exploration of the Swiggy app revealed a number of restaurants using AI-generated images of food items including noodles, pizza, pulao, and more.
While there are some obvious signs of AI use — such as unnaturally flowing cheese, strange food textures, uniformly patterned vegetables, or artificially bright colours — other images can look real until the user enlarges the photo to see a faint AI disclaimer.
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