Can this tool definitively detect AI-generated images?

No. Check AI Watermark performs heuristic analysis only. It looks for embedded provenance signatures (C2PA, vendor tags), filename hints, and metadata patterns. A clean result does not prove an image is human-made, and a flag does not prove it is AI.

What AI watermarks does it look for?

It scans for C2PA / Content Credentials strings and known vendor markers from providers like Adobe Firefly, OpenAI, Midjourney, and Stability AI, plus filename slugs commonly emitted by AI generators.

What image formats are supported?

JPG, JPEG, PNG, and WEBP up to 20MB. Other formats are rejected before upload.

Is my image uploaded anywhere?

No. All analysis happens in your browser. The file is never sent to a server.

Why does the confidence say 'low' even when I know the image is AI?

Many AI tools strip or omit watermarks. If no provenance signature, filename hint, or matching dimensions are present, the heuristic has nothing to flag — confidence stays low even for genuine AI images.

Can a screenshot preserve a watermark?

A screenshot usually destroys metadata watermarks and degrades pixel-domain ones, sometimes beyond recovery.

How AI Watermarking Works

Pixel-domain watermarks

Some systems (like Google's SynthID) modify pixel values in patterns the human eye misses but a paired detector can recover. The changes survive resizing, light compression, and color shifts.

Frequency-domain watermarks

Other approaches embed signals in the image's frequency components — the same mathematical space JPEG uses. These tend to be more robust to common edits than pure pixel patterns.

Metadata and content credentials

C2PA (Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity) attaches a cryptographically signed manifest to the file describing how it was made. Adobe Firefly, OpenAI, and Microsoft are early adopters.

How detection works

Detectors either look for the known statistical fingerprint of a watermark, or parse the file for provenance metadata. Check AI Watermark uses the latter approach — fast, transparent, but only effective when metadata survives.

Try the tool

Check AI Watermark

Upload an image to scan for AI watermarks, provenance signatures, and metadata clues.

Open Check AI Watermark

Frequently asked questions

Proprietary pixel-domain watermarks need vendor-supplied detectors. We surface what's publicly readable: filenames, metadata, and known provenance strings.

Jun 3, 20265 min read