Local eateries using AI images may be at risk of duping their customers, but a lack of legislation means they’re not breaking the law.

You notice something’s a bit off straight away. The macaroni looks too smooth, the miscellaneous herb is too miscellaneous and the sauce kinda looks like it’s glued on. But if it wasn’t obvious enough, there’s a watermark in the lower left: “imagined with AI.”

Scrolling through DoorDash usually turns up images of crispy chicken wings and sauce-dripping fries, however some businesses are now ditching the camera entirely and letting AI paint the image of their menu. One, Burrito House, has an AI image of Mexican food as its header. Another, Brags, uses several watermarked AI images to advertise curries, pastas, a salad, dumplings and wontons on Google.

Funnily enough, they’re the same restaurant – Auckland’s Burrito House, in the North Shore’s Birkenhead suburb, was folded into the Brags brand after co-owners Sandeep Bhadauria and Ravinder Gairola purchased it three months ago to fix its “stagnant and limited” sales, they told The Spinoff.

Though Brags and Burrito House are listed as different eateries on DoorDash, both operate from the same kitchen. Bhadauria says the business’ use of AI imagery is “intended to enhance the visual presentation of our menu, while the actual dishes closely reflect the descriptions provided on our website.”

“We take great pride in maintaining high standards for the quality of the food we serve, and we are confident that our customers will find their dining experience meets or exceeds their expectations.”

Using doctored images of food to advertise a menu and create the image of a flawless dish isn’t a new move in the hospitality industry. Photoshop, invented in 1987, has given businesses (not just the food industry) the power to make their offerings appear perfect for decades. In 2012, McDonalds released a behind-the-scenes video of a burger photoshoot, revealing the staging and retouching processes the company undergoes to create a burger with a perfect appearance, which includes q-tipping the buns and editing out any blemishes.

But AI-generated imagery presents its own challenges, as commercial photographers still have to use the ingredients relevant to the product they’re advertising (no, those claims you see online about motor oil being used on pancakes instead of syrup aren’t true). It may pose a different challenge, however, as consumers can’t be guaranteed that the prompt used to generate the image was an exact description of the restaurant’s food, or if they simply typed “pasta”. Some AI photos used by Brags did not clearly show the AI-made watermark.

Recent Google reviews show the use of AI hasn’t slowed down the business’s success; almost all reviews submitted in the past year have a five-star rating. “Delicious food. Nice place,” Lindsey wrote two months ago.

Online chatter suggests the eatery on Mokoia Road is very seldom open for in-restaurant diners, operating instead as a ghost kitchen. Also known as a virtual restaurant, a ghost kitchen is a service which has no public presence, exclusively serving online orders through platforms such as DoorDash and Uber Eats. The business model is supposed to present fewer risks than opening a traditional restaurant, though a lack of staff may mean fewer hands available to stage a social media-worthy food photo.

Bhadauria, however, says Brags “still offer dine in” at their brick and mortar. Despite this, proud Birkenhead local Hayden Donnell says he’s never seen, nor heard of, the restaurant in question. He is, however, familiar with Burrito House. 

“They used to be the best burrito place in town,” Donnell says. “I actually left a Google review saying people should go there instead of [redacted] around the corner, single-handedly killing [redacted’s business]. Burrito House was great, though, and it’s sad that it’s become something else.”

New Zealand has no legislation regulating the use of AI, however Consumer NZ says images such as these risk misleading customers about their products and services. “If a restaurant is using an AI image, or any imagery, to represent their food and the image does not reflect the reality of their offerings, then they risk breaching the Fair Trading Act and the Advertising Standards Authority Codes too,” says Jessica Walker, Consumer NZ communications and campaigns manager.

She says customers who feel they have been misled by an image should complain to the restaurant, and could also complain to the Advertising Standards Authority. Rule 2(b) Truthful Presentation of the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) rules that: “Advertisements must not mislead or be likely to mislead, deceive or confuse consumers, abuse their trust or exploit their lack of knowledge.

“This includes by implication, inaccuracy, ambiguity, exaggeration, unrealistic claim, omission, false representation or otherwise. Obvious hyperbole identifiable as such is not considered to be misleading.”

On its website, the ASA states that “Advertisers using generative AI must ensure that their advertisements accurately reflect their product or service, and do not inflate or falsely represent the benefits to the consumer. For advocacy advertising, claims made in an advertisement generated by AI must be able to be substantiated, and the advertiser’s opinion clearly distinguished from fact.”

Walker recommends consumers check reviews of a restaurant as a “safeguard” against doctored photos. “Many customers take photos of a restaurant’s food and share it along with their reviews and ratings. That can be a way to get a feel for what a restaurant’s food really looks like.”