July 21, 2025 Responsibility & Safety

New experimental AI tool helps people explore the context and origin of images seen online.

The ways people are using and interacting with images online is constantly evolving. Last year, we published a paper on determining trustworthiness through context and provenance , showing how better assessment tools can empower people to make informed decisions about what they’re seeing on the internet.

As part of our efforts to help people make informed choices, we’re developing easy-to-use provenance tools and in-product context features, and investing in areas like information literacy .

Today, we’re introducing Backstory, an experimental artificial intelligence (AI) tool that surfaces information and helps people learn more about the context of images seen online.

When given an image and a written prompt, Backstory investigates whether an image was AI-generated, when and where it’s previously been used online, and whether it’s been digitally altered.…