ChatGPT Is Scary Good at Guessing the Location of a Photo

Apr 18, 2025

Matt Growcoot

A composite image showing an urban apartment building in the rain on the left, a peaceful coastal village with boats at sunset on the right, and a location pin icon over a globe in the center. — We fed ChatGPT these photos to see if it could find the locations.

Users pushing the limits of ChatGPT’s powerful new AI image model have uncovered yet another astonishing — and slightly unnerving — ability: it can pinpoint the location of photographs.

For those familiar with the game Geoguessr, essentially what ChatGPT is doing is taking any kind of visual clues and using its computer brain to guess the photo’s location.

Tech Crunch shared a series of examples from X users who fed ChatGPT a photo and asked it to name the location. In one particularly impressive example, the app guessed the right library in Australia.

o3 is insane
I asked a friend of mine to give me a random photo
They gave me a random photo they took in a library
o3 knows it in 20 seconds and it's right pic.twitter.com/0K8dXiFKOY

— Yumi (@izyuuumi) April 17, 2025

Naturally, we had to test this out ourselves and found that, in general, it is very good at guessing a photo’s location. That said, it will give a wrong answer with near-certainty, a common flaw in AI technology also known as a “hallucination.”

For the following examples, I clicked the “Reasoning” button which makes the model “think” for longer.

A large metal tree sculpture with illuminated branches stands in the center of a cobblestone courtyard surrounded by historic buildings at night. — ‘This photo was taken in Prague, Czech Republic, specifically in the courtyard of the Galerie Lucerna or nearby the Lucerna Palace complex.’ | Photo by Jaron Schnieder

Wrong. But it’s not far off. This photo was taken in Prague in a different location that is a 12-minute walk away.

A hockey goalie in red gear dives to block a shot as a player in blue and white prepares to shoot the puck toward the net; fans watch from the stands in the background. — ‘This photo appears to have been taken during a college ice hockey game. The team in red seems to be Colgate University (as indicated by the “COLGATE” on the goalie’s jersey), and the team in light blue and navy is likely the University of Maine, judging by the style and color of their uniforms. Behind the glass, there’s signage mentioning the Bangor International Airport and the CITGO logo, which supports that this game likely took place at the Alfond Arena in Orono, Maine, which is the home rink for the University of Maine’s hockey team. So, this game was very likely photographed at Alfond Arena, University of Maine, Orono, ME.’ | Photo by Jeremy Gray

Correct. Could Rainbolt, one of the world’s best Geoguessr players, have picked out this exact location? Possibly not.

A hillside neighborhood with closely packed houses, many with metal roofs, overlooks a hazy city below. Lush green trees and mountains are in the background under a cloudy sky. — ‘The architecture, geography, and atmosphere strongly suggest this was taken in Medellín, Colombia — specifically looking over one of the comunas (likely Comuna 13 or a similar hillside area). The cloudy sky and mountainous setting are typical of Medellín’s Aburrá Valley. Did you take this from one of the Metrocable gondolas? The perspective and altitude fit perfectly!’ | Photo by Matt Growcoot

Correct. And not only that but it’s scary ChatGPT knew I was suspended in a gondola when I took this photo.

Snow falls on a dense cluster of multi-story apartment buildings in a city, with overcast skies and rooftops dusted with snow. The scene appears cold and quiet, showing windows and balconies along the buildings. — ‘This looks like a scene out of wintertime Istanbul. The steep, tightly packed mid‑rise flats with their little balconies, satellite dishes and window‑washing setups, plus the softly falling snow blanketing everything, are exactly what you’d see on one of the city’s many hillsides.’ | Photo by Matt Growcoot

Correct. But when I pressed it on the exact area it gave the wrong district with misplaced confidence.

View from a high vantage point of snow-covered buildings, trees, and fields stretching into the distance, with mountains and a partly cloudy sky at dawn or dusk. — ‘This view is from the slopes of Mount Bandai, looking out over snowy rice paddies to the pine‐lined shore of Lake Inawashiro (the fourth largest lake in Japan) and the mountains beyond. You’re up on the Bandai side of the lake in Fukushima Prefecture, Japan.’ | Photo by Jaron Schneider

Correct. It also guessed Jaron’s exact vantage point. Impressive.

A round, fenced outdoor structure with a partially covered roof and several colorful benches arranged in a circle. Trees and greenery surround the space, and sunlight filters through the canopy above. — ‘This is actually one of the old, vine‑clad bird‑cage enclosures in the National Garden of Athens (the former zoo/aviary), which has since been turned into a little circular seating pavilion with colorfully painted benches.’ | Photo by Matt Growcoot

Almost. It was taken in the Greek capital but not in the National Garden of Athens, which is just a mile away.

A small harbor at sunset with fishing boats floating on calm water, wooden docks, and rustic buildings along the shoreline, surrounded by tall pine trees and distant hills. — ‘This isn’t Europe at all but a classic little lobster‐boat harbor on Maine’s coast—specifically the waterfront at Southwest Harbor on Mount Desert Island (just offshore from Acadia National Park). You can see the last of the evening light glinting off the fishing shacks and moored boats in the sheltered cove.’ | Photo by Jeremy Gray

Wrong. It is an island of Maine but a “couple dozen miles” away, according to Jeremy.

A sunlit cemetery with various old gravestones and monuments surrounded by green grass, trees, and a dirt path on the right, under a partly cloudy sky. — ‘This image shows what looks very much like a Victorian‑era cemetery — you can see the 19th‑century style headstones and chest tombs scattered in a grassy churchyard, with mature trees and a dirt path running alongside. The red‑brick building peeking through the trees suggests Northern England (for example, Manchester’s Southern Cemetery has a similar feel), but I can’t be certain of the exact site just from the photo alone.’ | Photo by Matt Growcoot

Wrong. This was taken hundreds of miles away in Birmingham, a different English city.

Conclusion

The results are generally impressive; it got five out of eight correct and the ones it got wrong weren’t a million miles away. However, proceed with caution since ChatGPT will confidently give you the wrong answer.

As Tech Crunch notes, there are obvious privacy concerns since bad actors could use this tool to find someone’s live location, say through someone’s Instagram Story.

In response, ChatGPT tells Tech Crunch: “OpenAI o3 and o4-mini bring visual reasoning to ChatGPT, making it more helpful in areas like accessibility, research, or identifying locations in emergency response. We’ve worked to train our models to refuse requests for private or sensitive information, added safeguards intended to prohibit the model from identifying private individuals in images, and actively monitor for and take action against abuse of our usage policies on privacy.”

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