Search giant Google has apologised after a program in its new photo app put a "gorillas" label on a picture of a black couple.

"We're appalled and genuinely sorry that this happened. We are taking immediate action to prevent this type of result from appearing," a Google representative told AFP.

The app uses artificial intelligence to scan and identify people in images.

The chief architect of social at Google, Yonatan Zunger, replied to a tweet pointing out the error, saying: "This is 100% not OK. Paging the team to look into this now."

He added that this was "high on my list of bugs", and also thanked Twitter user @jackyalcine for alerting them to the issue so quickly.

Mr Zunger also pointed out that "until recently, it was confusing white faces with dogs and seals."

Google released its overhauled photo app for smartphones in May.