The Deepfakes Analysis Unit (DAU) analysed a video that apparently shows Sundar Pichai, Google’s chief executive, and Palki Sharma Upadhyay, a television journalist, promoting a financial investment platform supposedly linked to Google. After running the video through A.I. detection tools and getting our expert partners to weigh in, we were able to conclude that the video was manipulated using A.I.-generated audio.
A Facebook link to the two-minute-and-35-second video in English was sent to the DAU tipline for assessment. The video, embedded in a post, was published on Feb. 5, 2025 and has since garnered more than 1.3 million views. The name on the uploader’s account appears as “Finance News” and their display picture resembles the “G” used by Google as one of its logos. In their profile details they identify themselves as a “social media agency”.
The video has been packaged as a television news story. It opens in a studio-like setting with Mrs.Upadhyay apparently speaking into the camera. A logo bearing resemblance to that of Firstpost, an Indian news website, is visible in the foreground. An image of Mr.Pichai shaking hands with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a logo resembling that of Google, and the Indian national flag make up the backdrop.
A female voice recorded over Upadhyay’s video track announces the launch of a purported “innovative” platform, which is referred to as “Google Invest”. It claims that Google has supposedly launched the platform for Indian citizens in collaboration with the Indian government and “personal support” of Mr. Modi.
That voice promises an earning of “190,000 rupees” per month with an investment of “21,000 rupees”. These numbers are also highlighted through text graphics. The audio conveys that anyone who registers with the supposed platform will be contacted by a “personal manager” within an hour to be “guided” through the process.
The next segment of the video shows Mr. Pichai apparently talking into a camera from an outdoor setting. A logo resembling that of YouTube Originals, a platform that hosts original films and series, is visible in the bottom left corner throughout this segment.
A male voice recorded over his video track vouches for the profitability and reliability of the supposed platform claiming that it has been tested by a team and it can no longer be kept “secret”. It is touted to be A.I.-technology driven and purported to be the “first licenced platform in India that provides stable passive income to every investor”.
The audio track reiterates a “collaboration” with the Indian government and offers a “personal” guarantee of earning “190,000 rupees” on an investment of “21,000 rupees”. It also claims that hundreds of “thank you” letters are being received from those who have supposedly received a return on their investment.
This is yet another video where an initial investment amount of “21,000 rupees” is being recommended. The DAU has debunked several financial scam videos, such as this, this, and this, peddling dubious investment platforms where the same number was used.
The reference to a purported “Google Invest” platform is not new either. Manipulated videos produced by using synthetic audio with original footage featuring Pichai such as those debunked here and here also refer to the same name. However, no such platform has been promoted by him or the company he leads. These observations about similarities in names and numbers point to the copycat nature of financial scam videos with scripts being recycled.
The lip movements of Upadhyay are hard to read because the clip that has been used for her segment has been recorded at a wide angle and zooming in on it further deteriorates the video quality. In Pichai’s segment the lip movements seem to be in sync with the accompanying audio but his chin appears to quiver and the shape of his teeth does not seem consistent. The video quality for his segment too is not good.
The voice attributed to Upadhyay as well as Pichai bears resemblance to their real voice when compared with their recorded videos available online. However, Upadhyay’s accent sounds very westernised and Pichai’s does not sound like his natural accent. The overall delivery lacks natural intonation and sounds monotonous.
We undertook a reverse image search using screenshots from the video and established that unrelated clips and an edited image were stitched together to produce this manipulated video.
Using screenshots from Pichai’s segment, we were able to trace this post published by The Keyword, Google’s official blog, on Oct. 23, 2021. It carries an embedded video of Pichai’s recorded for YouTube’s “Dear Earth” event along with its transcript. The backdrop, clothing, and posture of Pichai in the keyframe of the video embed and the clips from his segment in the manipulated video match. However, on clicking the video link in the blog post we learnt that the video has been made private and is not accessible anymore.
The results that returned from the reverse image search also pointed us to this video of Pichai’s uploaded on Nov. 29, 2021 from a YouTube channel named JoyNurture, which posts content about parenting. Visually the video appeared identical to the clip in the doctored video as well as the keyframe from the video embed in The Keyword’s blog post. However, the apparent YouTube Originals logo visible in Pichai’s segment in the manipulated video did not appear in the keyframe or the other video we traced.
The transcript with the blog post and the audio track in the video from JoyNurture’s YouTube channel were an exact match. This established that the clips used in the manipulated video for Pichai’s segment were lifted from his video recording for the “Dear Earth” event.
We were unable to trace the original video featuring Upadhyay using screenshots from her segment in the video. However, our partners at RIT’s DeFake Project helped us trace this video published on Jan. 15, 2025 from the official YouTube channel of Firstpost. On comparing this video with the segment featuring her in the doctored video we established that a particular clip has been lifted from here to create the manipulated video. Her clothes, body language, and camera angle match exactly in the two videos but the backdrop is not the same and only a portion of the foreground is identical. These differences point to the visual manipulations in the video.
Kelly Wu from RIT shared analysis on images that make up the backdrop. She noted that the image of Pichai shaking hands with Modi was likely taken from an image like the one seen here as the main image.
Ms. Wu added that she located the image of the Google logo placed on a grey wall pop-up visible behind the Pichai and Modi image by searching for the keywords: “Google logo grey wall”. Images such as the ones seen here seem to have been used. The foreground visible in the original clip featuring Upadhyay has been manipulated by superimposing text graphics about the investment and earnings from the supposed platform.
The original videos of both Pichai and Upadhyay are in English, however, none of them talk about any financial investment platform.
To discern the extent of A.I. manipulation in the video under review, we put it through A.I. detection tools.
The voice tool of Hiya, a company that specialises in artificial intelligence solutions for voice safety, indicated that there is a 99 percent probability that the audio track in the video was generated or modified using A.I.
Hive AI’s deepfake video detection tool pointed out markers in various frames that feature Upadhyay and Pichai respectively. Their audio detection tool highlighted A.I. manipulation in the entire audio track with the video.
For a further analysis on the audio track of the video we put it through the A.I. speech classifier of ElevenLabs, a company specialising in voice A.I. research and deployment. The classifier returned results as “very likely”, indicating a high probability of the audio track having been generated using their software.
We reached out to ElevenLabs for a comment on the analysis. They told us that they were able to confirm that the audio is A.I.-generated. They added that they continue to identify and block attempts that involve the misuse of their tools and/or their use for generation of prohibited content.
For expert analysis on the video we shared it with our detection partner ConTrailsAI, a Bangalore-based startup with its own A.I. tools for detection of audio and video spoofs.
The team ran the video through audio as well as video detection detection models, the results that returned indicated high confidence for A.I. manipulation or generation in the video and audio track.
In their report, the team noted that the tools gave a high confidence that A.I. voice clones of Pichai and Upadhyay have been used to manipulate the video. They found clear signs of lip-sync tools having been used to synchronise the audio with lip movements in the video frames.
Our partners at RIT also weighed in on the manipulations in the video. Saniat Sohrawardi from the project analysed the audio track from Pichai’s segment by comparing it with six real audio snippets of Pichai taken from YouTube.
Mr. Sohrawardi said that the real audio samples and the one in the manipulated video sound different. He also ran a technical analysis to compare the two sets of voices and noted that audio snippets from the fake video vary significantly from the snippets taken from the real videos.
He also pointed out the visual artifacts. He found evidence of “toading” at several points in the video, explaining that these are instances when the bottom part of the face or Adam's apple protrudes beyond the expected amount. Previously, the RIT team had likened this anomaly to the “breathing of a toad”.
He highlighted the blurring between the right-side of Pichai’s chin and the area below that along the neck. He said that occurs as the algorithm tries to recreate the background beyond the face; as that portion falls within the area that was cropped for manipulation during lip-sync generation.
On the basis of our findings and expert analyses we can conclude that original footage was used with synthetic audio to fabricate the video. It is yet another attempt to promote a financial scam by falsely linking it to a tech giant and its leader.
(Written by Debopriya Bhattacharya and Debraj Sarkar, edited by Pamposh Raina.)
Kindly Note: The manipulated video/audio files that we receive on our tipline are not embedded in our assessment reports because we do not intend to contribute to their virality.
