OAN broadcasts AI-generated fake images of women soldiers, issues apology
One America News aired AI-generated images of women soldiers created by Grok during a Wednesday segment about increased female military recruitment. The network and host Matt Gaetz apologized the following day, acknowledging the images violated company policy and should not have been used.
What happened
On Wednesday, August 14, 2025, One America News host Matt Gaetz interviewed Defense Department spokeswoman Kingsley Wilson about increased female military recruitment, stating 'The Army, the Air Force, the Navy, EVERYONE IS HITTING THEIR (RECRUITING) METRICS EARLY!' as part of a segment showing images of women soldiers in military fatigues.
The images displayed on air were AI-generated by Grok, an AI chatbot developed by Elon Musk, as indicated by watermarks visible in the bottom corners of the images. The Department of Defense stated it did not provide the images to OAN.
Reported impact
OAN acknowledged that the images 'violated company policies' and stated the policies have been 're-enforced' with staff.
On Thursday night's broadcast, Gaetz apologized, explaining that OAN is 'generally quite cautious about showing the faces of actual military members on air' and acknowledged the mistake: 'But we made a mistake. We used AI-generated images of female service members as part of our B-roll package, and we shouldn't have.'
Index analysis
The use of AI-generated images in a news segment discussing military recruitment statistics presented synthetic media as factual documentation, creating the appearance of authentic military personnel when the individuals depicted were machine-generated.
Governance controls
OAN stated that 'an on-air correction has been put in place' and that 'management has taken additional actions to ensure the issue is appropriately addressed.'
Classification
Sources and evidence
This record was researched and written by the Index, based on the following original reporting.