AI Image Detector
Drop an image to check whether it was generated by ChatGPT, DALL·E, Midjourney, Stable Diffusion, or Adobe Firefly. No upload required.
Your file stays on your device. Content Credentials, metadata, and the neural detector all run in your browser.
How the AI detector decides
Most AI image detectors are guessing games. MediaSens stacks three independent signals so the verdict has something concrete to stand on:
- C2PA Content Credentials. If the generator signed the file (OpenAI, Adobe Firefly, cameras with verified-source modes), the signature names the producer cryptographically. This is the strongest possible signal.
- Embedded generator metadata.Many AI tools leave traces in PNG text chunks, XMP packets, or IPTC fields — “Software: ChatGPT”, “Made by OpenAI”, Stable Diffusion parameter strings, Automatic1111 prompts. MediaSens scans all of these.
- Visual detectors.When metadata has been stripped, a neural detector (Community Forensics, CVPR 2025) trained on thousands of generators estimates how likely the pixels came from one. It runs in your browser; saved reports are re-checked on our server. On our labeled test set it catches more than nine in ten AI images from Midjourney, DALL·E, Firefly, Flux, Imagen, Gemini and others, and its mistakes are mostly real photos re-exported by editing software.
The result explains which signals fired and weights them honestly. If only the visual detectors have anything to say, you'll see that called out, not dressed up as certainty.
Want this on every image you see? The Chrome extension adds a right-click menu that sends any image on the web straight to the detector.
What the detector can and can't do
Reliable when: the image still has its original metadata, or it came directly from a generator that signs C2PA credentials.
Less reliable when:the file has been screenshotted, re-saved, heavily compressed, or run through filters — all of which strip metadata and distort the visual signal. Treat the detector's score alone as strong evidence, not proof.
Other things you can check at the same time
- C2PA checker — verify Content Credentials and signing chain in detail
- EXIF viewer — see camera, GPS, timestamps, and software fields
- All MediaSens tools — the full analyzer with reverse image search
Frequently asked questions
- How does the AI image detector work?
- MediaSens combines several signals: C2PA Content Credentials (if the generator signed the file), embedded metadata in PNG text chunks and XMP/IPTC fields that many AI tools quietly leave behind, and a neural detector (Community Forensics, CVPR 2025) trained on output from thousands of image generators, which runs in your browser. The result explains which signals fired.
- Is the AI detector free?
- Yes. The detector itself runs in your browser and has no per-image cost. A free account adds plain-language AI summaries (4/month); paid plans remove that cap.
- Do you upload my image?
- Not unless you ask us to. C2PA verification, EXIF/XMP extraction, and the neural detector all run in your browser and the file stays on your device. If you sign in and save a report, the image is stored so the server can re-run every check and confirm the result. The optional AI summary uses extracted text metadata only, not the image bytes.
- Can it detect ChatGPT / DALL·E / Midjourney / Stable Diffusion images?
- Often, yes. ChatGPT and DALL·E images carry C2PA credentials and 'Made by OpenAI' XMP tags. Adobe Firefly signs its output too. Stable Diffusion front-ends such as Automatic1111 and ComfyUI leave prompts and parameters in PNG text chunks. Midjourney strips almost everything, so for Midjourney and any image whose metadata has been removed the answer comes from the visual detectors alone, as a probability rather than a certainty.
- What about screenshots of AI images?
- Screenshots lose the original metadata and re-encode the pixels, so the result rests on the visual detectors alone. Accuracy drops without metadata; treat the score as a hint, not proof.
- Why do two images of the same scene give different results?
- Compression, re-encoding, cropping, and screenshotting all alter the signal patterns the detector relies on. The presence of C2PA or generator metadata is much more reliable than the visual heuristic alone.