Image Tools
AI or real image checker
Not sure if a picture was made by AI? Drop it in below. The checker reads the file's hidden metadata and generator fingerprints in your browser and tells you whether it looks AI-generated or like a real photo — with the reasoning laid out.
Drop an image to analyse
or click to browse — JPG and PNG work best
AI or real: what actually gives it away
People used to spot AI images by their mistakes — six-fingered hands, melted text, impossible reflections. Those tells are mostly gone now. What hasn't changed as fast is the data hidden inside the file. A photo straight from a phone or camera carries EXIF metadata describing the device and settings. An AI image typically doesn't, and may instead carry the generator's own signature or the prompt used to make it.
This checker focuses on those durable, machine-readable signals rather than guessing from pixels. It tells you which signals it found and which direction each one points, so the answer is transparent instead of a black box.
The honest limits
Metadata is fragile. Upload an image to most social platforms and they strip it; screenshot anything and the original data is gone. Metadata can also be edited to mislead. So when the checker says “inconclusive,” it usually means the file has been through one of those processes and the evidence simply isn't there. That's a more honest answer than a confident guess — and it's why you should treat any single tool as one input, not the whole investigation.
Frequently asked questions
- How can I tell if an image is AI or real?
- The most reliable local clues are in the file's metadata: a real photo usually has camera EXIF (make, model, exposure), while AI images often have generator tags, embedded prompts, or C2PA credentials instead. This checker reads all of those and gives you a likelihood with the evidence shown.
- Can people tell AI images apart just by looking?
- Less and less. Modern generators have fixed the classic giveaways like malformed hands and garbled text. Visual inspection still helps, but metadata and provenance signals are often more dependable when they survive.
- Why might a real photo be flagged as possibly AI?
- If a genuine photo has had its metadata stripped (common after social-media upload or editing), it loses the camera EXIF that marks it as real, so the checker has less evidence and may return 'inconclusive' rather than 'likely real.'
- Is this checker free and private?
- Yes. It's free, needs no account, and runs entirely in your browser. Your image is never uploaded to a server.
- Should I rely on this for important decisions?
- No single tool should be your only source. This checker is a useful first pass, but for high-stakes verification combine it with reverse image search, the original source, and cross-checking with other detectors.