The MLA Style Guide has released guidance on citation for AI generated content, including images. In MLA format, images used in text should include a caption.
For AI generated images, the caption should include a description of the prompt, followed by the AI tool, version, and date created.
MLA Suggested Template:
Prompt/Description, AI tool, Version, Publisher (of the AI tool), Date, URL.
MLA Examples:
“Pointillist painting of a sheep in a sunny field of blue flowers” prompt, DALL-E, version 2, OpenAI, 8 Mar. 2023, labs.openai.com/.
“Generate an image of bigfoot reading a book” prompt, Microsoft Copilot, DALL-E version 3, Microsoft & OpenAI, 28 April 2025, copilot.cloud.microsoft/.
