It's a longline silhouette and colour synonymous with papal regalia.
But was Pope Francis really rocking a cinched white puffer jacket?
Were we looking at the Balenciaga Pope? The Puffer pontiff? The vicar of drip?
The image, originally posted on Facebook and Reddit, quickly went viral.
Some adherents knew straight away the Pope, 86, wouldn't get around in that kind of gear.
For sceptical internet users who knew to give the picture a double take, it was the warped hand and slight blur of the cross necklace which gave it away as a fake.
But for many, the lifelike AI-generated image with well-placed shadows was convincing.
"I was shocked and then settled into his right to be warm!" explained one Tweeter.
Talking to her 12.9 million followers, model and author Chrissy Teigen tweeted: “I thought the pope’s puffer jacket was real and didnt give it a second thought. no way am I surviving the future of technology.”
The rapid spread of this lifelike, yet fake image, is the latest demonstration of how convincing AI-generated artwork has become and sparked concerns about how easy it is to produce disinformation.
The virality of the image has spooked its 31-year-old creator, a Chicago construction worker who told BuzzFeed News he was high on drugs when he had the idea.
He used the AI program Midjourney to create the image.
“I’m trying to figure out ways to make something funny because that’s what I usually try to do,” he said.
“I try to do funny stuff or trippy art — psychedelic stuff. It just dawned on me: I should do the Pope. Then it was just coming like water: ‘The Pope in Balenciaga puffy coat, [clothing brand] Moncler, walking the streets of Rome, Paris,’ stuff like that.”
He said it was “definitely scary” that “people are running with it and thought it was real without questioning it.”
Why 'Balenciaga Pope' is a culturally significant piece of media
The image existed in an ideal set of circumstances, Tama Leaver, a Professor in Internet Studies at Perth's Curtin University, told The Feed.
The stakes were low, the AI was hyper-real, and its "triviality" meant people could let their guard down. Pope Francis - more progressive than his predecessors - "just wears it so well," he adds.
Only days before, fake AI-made photos of President Trump being forcefully arrested had landed on the internet, to a more knowing and critical audience.
The proportions of Donald Trump and the police officers were not accurate and some of the officers didn't have the right number of fingers on their hands.
In the past week, a new version of Midjourney was released, now able to draw human hands correctly - fixing a major tell.
But the lighthearted Pope image marks a significant cultural moment, Professor Leaver said.
"Our cultural literacies haven't evolved at the speed of the tools that can create material."
"This is a more comfortable entry point for a lot of people to discuss the fact that photographic-level imagery and truth just need to be completely disassociated," he said, adding that this time, it's a less politically charged example.
Even with a long history of Photoshop and other digital manipulation tools, linking realistic images to fact was something individuals couldn't shake, he said.
Now, that might change.
"They can't go hand-in-hand anymore. And I think now it's a real challenging cultural moment."
The image has prompted some users to explain online just how easily it was made, and how easily it can be made time and time again.
Now there are 'Balenciaga Popes' in orange, yellow and blue puffer jackets.
What does this mean for fighting misinformation?
Generative AI is not a new concept, but within the last year, the space has seen significant investment from major tech companies like Google and Microsoft, making the technology both more powerful and accessible.
“In the competitive pressure to take advantage of these technologies, we're seeing the companies behave with a little less responsibility than they did in the past," Professor Toby Walsh, Chief Scientist at the UNSW AI institute said.
“They're rushing to put these tools in the hands of the public, knowing full well there are going to be risks, and there are going to be problems.”
When people see a piece of media that raises doubts, Professor Leaver said "context will always be king," encouraging viewers to check its source.
"That will be a really hard pivot for most people, to by default have that thought. But that's where we're going to end up."
Professor Lisa Given, who is an expert in human information behaviour and how technology influences day-to-day decision-making at RMIT said her heightened scepticism has seen her doubt photos that are genuine.
"The same day I saw the Pope image, there were photos of Anthony Albanese welcoming President Barack Obama and they were standing with their umbrellas.
"And I immediately went, 'Oh, is that a fake?' ... it's a genuine image. But even that innocuous photo had me questioning."
One of the AI-generated images of the pope wearing a puffer jacket. Credit: Midjourney
Twitter users put a disclaimer under the AI pope photo
On Twitter, images of 'Balenciaga Pope' are now displayed with a user-generated disclaimer which appears when other users rate it "helpful".
"This image of Pope Francis is an AI-generated picture and not real. The image was created on the AI image-generating app midjourney," the notice reads.
Professor Leaver said it wouldn't shock him if platforms integrated a "reverse image search" or a better detection tool to label image sources.
"But there is a real danger of linking all of these things just to the word 'AI' when digital manipulation has been happening for decades."
Professor Given shares the same sentiment.
"We're not good as human beings in reading the manual ... we've got to all pull together and do a lot more translation work and education work. Otherwise, we'll end up with regulations we don't want or need."
