An investigation by The Guardian, published on 1 October 2026, found that several popular AI chatbots could remove hijabs from images of Muslim women when prompted. The investigation tested ChatGPT, Grok, Google Gemini, and Anthropic’s Claude, raising questions about how AI image-editing tools handle religious clothing and cultural sensitivity.

In the tests, ChatGPT and Grok complied with requests to remove a hijab from an AI-generated image of a woman wearing one. Gemini initially declined, citing concerns about altering a person’s appearance without consent, but generated an image without the hijab when the request was reframed as making the woman look more “Western.” Claude stated that it did not have image-editing capabilities and would not alter a photograph to remove someone’s hijab.

The findings raise broader questions about consent, religious expression, and the safeguards used by AI companies. They also highlight the challenges of ensuring that image-generation technologies are developed and used in ways that respect cultural and religious diversity.