How to Cite a DALL·E Image

APA does not currently publish a dedicated example for this exact source type. The format below applies APA's current AI citation principles to this source.

What APA does publish is two worked AI forms: an AI tool — Google. (2025). Gemini 3 Flash [Large language model]. https://gemini.google.com — and an AI chat, which adds the day and a title and moves the tool's name after the brackets. See APA's AI references examples page and its reference-formats post and judge for yourself. The entry below is APA's chat form element for element — company, full date, a description in the title slot, a bracketed label, the tool and the link. What is ours is the label itself: [AI-generated image] appears in no APA example. APA permits the swap in so many words — "other descriptions are possible; use the description that best fits the type of AI model or tool used", and, of the chat form, "Adapt the wording within square brackets as needed" — so treat [AI-generated image] as the wording Citation[Z] chose under that permission, and use your instructor's if they prefer another.

OpenAI → date → image description → [AI-generated image] → DALL·E 3 → link. Build it in the generator under Manual Entry → AI-generated image.

DALL·E is OpenAI's text-to-image model, now built into ChatGPT and the OpenAI API. Because most people reach it through ChatGPT, the same conversation can produce both text and an image — and they're cited differently, which is where students get tangled.

Citing the image records which model made it and when, and satisfies AI-disclosure requirements when that visual ends up in your work.

• Author is OpenAI, not "DALL·E" or "ChatGPT." DALL·E is the model; OpenAI is the maker, so it goes in the author slot.
• DALL·E 3 is the model, not a version. Name it where the tool's name goes, not in a parenthetical after the description. APA retired the version parenthetical as a default in September 2025 and asks for the model name instead — its own examples put a model in exactly this slot (ChatGPT-5, Gemini 3 Flash). MLA differs: it keeps a Version element and asks you to name the model there as specifically as you can. Naming the tool DALL·E 3 already does that, so nothing separate is left to add — but MLA's own example splits the two as DALL·E, version 3, OpenAI, so follow that split if you are hand-building the entry.
• Use a share link when you can. ChatGPT lets you share a conversation (chatgpt.com/share/…); that link is your most specific source.
• Image vs. text. If you also quote ChatGPT's words, that's a separate citation — see how to cite ChatGPT.