What is the most reliable way to tell if an image is AI-generated?

Embedded provenance: C2PA Content Credentials naming an AI generator, or PNG text chunks containing prompts/seeds. These are machine-written fingerprints. Visual inspection and pixel-based AI detectors are far less reliable on current models.

Can AI-generated images have no metadata?

Yes. Screenshots, messaging-app recompression, or deliberate stripping (e.g. with Vantawebs) remove the fingerprints. A clean file with no AI tags may still be AI-generated — absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

How do I check C2PA on an image for free?

Use Adobe's free Content Authenticity Verify site, run ExifTool with JUMBF flags, or drop the file in the Vantawebs tool on this page — its instant preview reports detected C2PA manifests alongside other software and prompt tags.

How to Check If an Image Is AI-Generated

Spotting AI images takes 60 seconds if you check the file, not just the pixels. Modern generators leave machine-readable fingerprints. Work through these four methods in order — from conclusive to circumstantial.

1. Inspect C2PA Content Credentials. The strongest signal. Drop the file at verify.contentauthenticity.org or in the Vantawebs tool below — a manifest naming Firefly, DALL-E, Designer or "AI-generated" is near-conclusive proof. Absence proves nothing (credentials can be stripped), but presence settles it.
2. Read PNG text chunks. Stable Diffusion, ComfyUI and many local tools embed prompts, seeds and model hashes in tEXt/iTXt. Open with ExifTool (exiftool -Parameters image.png) or SD WebUI PNG Info. Finding a prompt + seed + sampler = AI-generated, guaranteed.
3. Reverse image search. Run Google Lens / TinEye. Dozens of identical hits across prompt-marketplaces, or zero hits plus "looks stock-perfect" is suggestive. AI portraits of non-existent people return no social profiles — a useful negative test.
4. Visual artifacts (weakest alone). Melted hands, extra fingers, garbled text, earrings that do not match, overly smooth skin, impossible physics in reflections. Newer models (Midjourney v6+, SDXL, DALL-E 3) fail these tests far less — never rely on eyes alone.

Fastest check: instant preview

Drop the suspicious file in the tool below. In one second Vantawebs reports software tags, PNG prompt chunks, and C2PA manifest presence — the three file-level AI signals — before you decide to clean or confront. No upload, runs locally. Learn what each signal means: C2PA explained and Stable Diffusion fingerprints.

What about "AI detectors"? Pixel-based detectors (Hive, Illuminarty, platform-native classifiers) give probabilities, not verdicts — false-positive rates on real photography reach double digits. File metadata beats guesswork whenever you have the original file rather than a screenshot.

Received a file you need to neutralize? If you generated it yourself or own the rights, the same tool strips the AI tags: C2PA manifests, PNG parameters, software strings. Note the ethics — do not strip others' provenance to misrepresent work; see our notes in the DALL-E guide.

Check your file now: drop it below for the instant AI-tag report.

A note on edited and hybrid images: many real disputes involve mixed pipelines — an AI base with heavy Photoshop overpainting, or a real photo with generative fill. In these cases the C2PA edit chain is the most informative signal because it lists each step ('generated with Firefly, edited with Photoshop'). A stripped file hides that history, which is why provenance matters most at the point of publication, not after virality.