How to tell if an image was made with Meta AI

What Meta AI writes into the file

Meta AI generates images in WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook and on meta.ai. The details below come from Meta's newsroom posts from 2023 and 2024.

C2PA (Content Credentials) is a signed provenance record in the file, IPTC Digital Source Type a metadata field on how the image was made, for example trainedAlgorithmicMedia for fully AI-generated images. An invisible watermark sits in the pixels, and only the vendor can read it.

How to check a Meta AI image

1. Drag the original file from Meta AI into the box above. It is read in your browser, not uploaded. Screenshots and copies from stores or social networks usually no longer carry the data.
2. Under “IPTC / XMP” there may be a note on AI generation. Meta does not say which value it writes.
3. Also look for the visible marker on the image.

More detail in the AI image checker.

The checker is not an AI detector. It only shows what the file says. An empty result does not prove a real photo, not least because providers of AI systems placed on the market before 2 August 2026 have until 2 December 2026 to add machine-readable marking (Article 111(4) AI Act).

What survives uploads and edits

According to Meta, the watermark survives common changes such as cropping, colour changes and screenshots. Meta also acknowledges that invisible markers can be stripped.

The IPTC metadata, like all metadata, is lost through screenshots and many uploads.

Labelling duty in your store under the EU AI Act

If you use Meta AI to create or edit images for your own store, you are a deployer, even when an agency or an employee works on your instructions (Article 3(4) AI Act, Commission guidelines para. 12, 14). If the image is a deep fake, meaning realistic and falsely appearing authentic, you have had to label it visibly since 2 August 2026 (Article 50(4) AI Act). The labelling check tells you whether that applies, and the guide to the labelling duty explains the rules.

The traces in the table do not replace that label, because people cannot see them straight away (guidelines para. 117). Still, keep them in the file, as the guidelines recommend. They document where the image came from.

According to Meta's help pages, Meta only labels ads on its platforms automatically when they were made with Meta's own AI tools. For images from other tools, you add the label yourself.

How Meta AI labels its own output

Meta labels photorealistic Meta AI images in its own apps with “Imagined with AI”. For content Meta detects as AI-generated, it has used the label “AI info” since July 2024, previously “Made with AI”.

Meta detects images from other providers by their C2PA and IPTC data, which must still be in the file at upload.