How to tell if an image was made with Shopify Magic

What Shopify Magic writes into the file

Shopify Magic generates images in the file editor and replaces backgrounds, including with AI backgrounds. The Sidekick assistant also generates images from text prompts, and Shopify mentions no watermark for it.

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 Shopify Magic image

1. Drag the original file from Shopify Magic 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. For an edited photo of your own, the checker shows whatever metadata is left in the file. Shopify documents no AI note.
3. So keep your own record of which images were made with Shopify Magic or Sidekick and what the AI did. The AI-Label Shopify app logs this for every 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

Shopify says the watermark cannot be removed. It does not document whether the watermark remains detectable after cropping, exporting or uploading to other platforms.

Merchants reported in the Shopify forum in 2026 that the CDN strips XMP metadata. Shopify staff wrote in July and September 2026 that this had been fixed, but there is no official notice. This matters for Google Merchant Center, which requires the IPTC note on AI images.

Labelling duty in your store under the EU AI Act

If you use Shopify Magic 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.

Shopify Magic being built into the platform does not change your role. You decide to use the tool for your product images, so you are the deployer.

A new AI background behind a real, unaltered product usually does not need a label under the guidelines if it is purely decorative (para. 116). A realistic scene that fakes a situation of use can be a deep fake.

How Shopify Magic labels its own output

The media generation help page only mentions the invisible watermark and says it does not restrict commercial use.