Crowd gathers at Buckingham Palace after fake AI Christmas market hoax

Those arriving at Buckingham Palace in hopes of a magical winter escape were instead greeted by scaffolding, security fences and rain-soaked pavements.

AI-generated images showed a festive market outside the Monarch’s London residence which have spread all across social media, prompting excited tourists to gather at Buckingham Palace’s gates.

In the fake images, wooden chalets sat beneath a layer of snow, fairy lights shimmered above, along with a massive Christmas tree set in front of the Royal residence.

But visitors who showed up at the gates were met with disappointment as they discovered that there was no sign of the seasonal market, in fact it didn’t exist at all.

Many were left disheartened due to the misleading photos of Buckingham Palace’s first ever Christmas market realising it was fake.

These doctored images went viral on Instagram, TikTok and Facebook, spreading quickly on the audience's accounts.

An Influencer account run by Shivani Khosla made a video about the experience. "The Buckingham Palace Christmas market is not real. And apparently the image is fake," she said in the video.

"I got scammed again," she wrote in the caption.

In response to the widespread confusion, The Royal Collection Trust clarified the situation through a statement on their website.

"Please note that the Royal Mews Christmas Shop is a pop-up shop selling Royal Collection Trust festive products within the existing Royal Mews shop space, and is not a Christmas market," the statement read.

"There will not be a Christmas market at Buckingham Palace."