Getting Paid to Rename AI Images — Real Gig or Internet Lie? 🤖🖼️

🧠 Introduction: Can You Really Make Money by Just Naming AI Images?

Imagine getting paid not for designing graphics or editing photos—but for something as simple as renaming images generated by AI. Sounds absurd, right? But in 2025, some platforms claim to offer money just for assigning titles to pictures created by artificial intelligence tools like Midjourney, DALL·E, and Stable Diffusion.

Whether you’re scrolling through freelancing sites or watching TikTok side hustle trends, you’ve probably seen someone say: “Rename AI images and earn dollars from home!” But is this a real income opportunity—or just another gimmick preying on our hope to make money online with no skills?

I tried it myself. Here’s what I found.

🧩 What Does “Renaming AI Images” Even Mean?

Before we dive into the platforms, let’s clarify what this task actually involves.

AI art platforms generate millions of images daily, and many of these end up in public databases, stock image libraries, or content datasets. To organize them, creators or companies often need metadata—which includes simple things like:

A clear and accurate title (e.g., “A cat sitting in a library, oil painting style”)
Short descriptions or tags
Contextual labels based on what’s in the image (e.g., “sci-fi landscape,” “portrait,” etc.)

That’s where you come in. Some apps and microtask platforms claim they’ll pay users to view AI images and rename them appropriately, especially to help train algorithms or improve searchability in stock libraries.

Sounds easy, right? But there’s a catch—or three.

🔍 I Tried 3 Sites That Claim to Pay for This

To find out if this trend is legit, I tested three platforms mentioned frequently on Reddit and YouTube side hustle videos.

Remotasks (AI Annotation Tasks)

Remotasks is known for data labeling jobs. In 2025, they introduced a new section for image metadata tagging, including basic image renaming.

🧪 What I Did: Logged in, passed the tutorial, and was shown AI-generated pictures with a prompt to give each image a “useful, SEO-friendly title.”
💰 Payout: ~$0.05 per image
🕒 Time Spent: About 10 seconds per image, but the queue often ran dry
✅ Verdict: Real but not sustainable as a main income. Maybe $3/hour max.

Clickworker (UHRS Tasks)

Clickworker sometimes offers tasks under the UHRS system that involve renaming or categorizing images.

🧪 What I Did: Applied and got access to one “Image Judging” task that paid for creating labels and titles for AI-style images.
💰 Payout: About $0.03–$0.08 per image depending on complexity
🕒 Time Spent: Each task took 10–20 seconds; availability was inconsistent
✅ Verdict: It’s real work, but you need to be fast, and competition is high.

Appen (Project-based gigs)

Appen occasionally offers short projects requiring users to title visual data.

🧪 What I Did: Got accepted to a limited-time project where I had to give friendly titles to AI images used for digital assistant training.
💰 Payout: Around $15/hour—but only lasted for a few days.
✅ Verdict: Real gig, but temporary. Ideal for quick cash, not long-term work.

🧠 Why Would Anyone Pay You to Do This?

So what’s the business model? Why would a company pay for something that sounds so minor?

Here’s the logic:

AI Needs Human Labels: Training machine learning models requires accurate human-generated data. That includes correct titles and tags.
Stock Libraries Are Expanding: Companies selling AI-generated stock photos want clean, searchable titles. A clear name means more downloads.
Cheap Labor, Fast Results: Instead of paying $30/hour for a professional, companies crowdsource tasks to users at micro-pay levels.

You’re not getting rich off it—but you are helping train the future of image search, AI classification, and even social media platforms.

⚠️ So, Is It Worth Your Time?

✅ Pros:

No skills needed; just basic English and observation
Quick tasks you can do from your phone
Flexible hours with some real payouts

❌ Cons:

Very low pay per task (unless part of a premium project)
Unstable task availability
Some platforms don’t guarantee long-term gigs
Requires focus and accuracy—sloppy titles get rejected

In short: it’s a real microtask, not a scam—but it’s not your path to early retirement either.

🧾 Sources Used

Personal testing on Remotasks.com, Clickworker.com, and Appen.com
Reddit: r/beermoney & r/workonline discussions (2025 posts)
YouTube reviews from creators testing image tagging gigs

💬 My Final Thoughts (and a Warning)

After four days of testing, I made around $18 total across all platforms. Not bad for a passive experiment—but also not worth quitting your job over.

Here’s my honest advice:

If you’re broke and want to try something simple: Go for it. Try Appen or Clickworker and look for image-naming gigs.
If you want steady income: This won’t do it. The gigs are sporadic, underpaid, and competitive.
If you see a YouTuber saying they made $200 in a day: Be cautious. That’s either an old screenshot or they had access to a limited premium project.

👩🏻‍💻🌟Written by Author Fatima Al-Hajri