Is Your Wall Art AI-Generated or Not? How I Make My Assessment

I’ve created a framework for analyzing wall art to try and parse out whether it is likely to be AI-generated or not and detailed it below. It should first be noted that this framework has been developed based on my knowledge of the wall art and print industry and only works for analyzing artwork sold as wall art like prints, posters, canvases, or digital downloads intended to be printed as wall art. It cannot be used effectively to examine any image or artwork.

How I Assess Wall Art to Determine if It Is AI-Generated

Whenever I receive a submission through my AI art assessment form (link here), I assess the item across five different categories and then use all of that information to make a final judgment, which I quantify on a scale of 1 to 5:

1 – Strong evidence of human creation
2 – Some evidence of human creation
3 – Inconclusive
4 – Some indicators of AI generation
5 – Strong indicators of AI generation

No assessment based on the information available online can provide absolute certainty about whether an artwork was created using AI. However, by examining several different types of evidence together, I can often reach a well-supported and educated judgment about what the artwork is most likely to be. My final rating reflects what the combined evidence most strongly indicates.

Some Background

Before I go into more detail about the five categories I look into, I want to explain a little about the wall art decor industry, which will help explain why I look at the things that I do.

If someone is selling artwork online as a print, poster, canvas, or anything else, there are generally only four ways they could have legally acquired the rights to that artwork:

1.  They are the artist themselves and own the rights to the work.
2. The artwork is in the public domain or is otherwise free of copyright restrictions.
3. They have licensed artwork made by a different artist or have permission to resell licensed artwork.
4. The art is AI-generated.

The categories I look into below are designed to help me figure out which of these four categories an item submitted through my AI assessment form is most likely to fall into. If I can find good evidence that it falls into one of the first three categories, I can have much greater confidence that the artwork is not AI-generated. Alternatively, if there is little evidence connecting it to any of the first three categories and there are also other indicators of AI generation, that will affect my final assessment.

The Categories I Look At

Visual Impression

This is my initial visual instinct based on looking at the item. AI-generated artwork often has certain recurring styles and markers that can be picked out when you are familiar with them. Because I spend every day working with pre-20th-century paintings, I am particularly good at picking out the difference between genuine vintage artwork and AI-generated work pretending to be vintage artwork. However, not all AI-generated art can be easily identified visually. Sometimes artwork made by real humans, especially modern artists who create digital art, can look very similar to AI-generated art. As such, this factor is only one thing I consider in my assessment.

Product Description

I look at the product description to see whether there is any mention of an artist or the use of AI tools. While most sellers who sell AI-generated wall art are not transparent about its creation, some are. Etsy’s policy allows items that use AI-generated work to be sold on the condition that the seller discloses the use of AI in the product description. As such, I have seen a handful of truthful sellers, mostly on Etsy, who disclose that the artwork they sell is AI-generated. More commonly, no artist or creation information is given. This does not necessarily mean that the work is AI-generated, but it increases the likelihood in my assessment, especially if a Google reverse-image search also produces no meaningful matches.

Alternatively, a credible mention of an artist drastically decreases the likelihood of AI generation in my assessment.

Artist Information

I go beyond the product description to see whether I can find any further mention of the artist elsewhere on the website or shop where the item is listed.

If a specific artist is mentioned in the product description or in the website or shop biography, I Google the artist and look for any additional information I can find. For contemporary artists, I will also check for social-media accounts and see whether they have any process videos, sketches, progress photos, or other material showing them making their artwork. If the wall art I am analyzing seems consistent with their portfolio, I can have strong confidence that the work is not AI-generated.

Reverse-Image-Search Results

I use Google reverse-image search tools on the artwork to see whether there are any matching results. This helps identify most works that fall into category #2 listed above, since artwork in the public domain will often have documentation available online through a museum website or another public-domain source, such as Wikimedia Commons, that should appear in a reverse-image search. Occasionally, artwork available for licensing will also show matching results in a reverse-image search. AI-generated images, on the other hand, will frequently have no comparable documentation available online. Sometimes, AI-generated artwork will produce other visual matches, but they will not come from museums, public-domain collections, artists’ portfolios, or licensing sources.

Seller Context

I look for further information about who the seller is, assuming they are not the artist themselves. Are they a massively popular decor company? A digital-download seller on Etsy? An art gallery? This is particularly useful for teasing out whether an item is AI-generated or whether it is real artwork that has been licensed for use as wall art. Why? Licensing artwork can be expensive. Buying the rights to produce prints or posters can cost hundreds of dollars for each artwork. This is the kind of thing that massive, multimillion-dollar companies such as Hobby Lobby, Magnolia, or HomeGoods could afford to do. However, if a small seller has hundreds or even thousands of wall-art items available for sale in their shop or on their website, it may be difficult to believe that they are individually paying to license every piece.

I also look at the seller’s catalog as a whole. If the specific item I am assessing is visually ambiguous, but the seller offers hundreds of other pieces that contain the same recurring indicators of AI generation, that larger pattern becomes meaningful. One questionable image may not tell me very much on its own. An entire shop filled with similarly questionable images tells me considerably more.

My Final Judgment

Once I have looked at all five categories, I consider how the evidence fits together as a whole. I do not treat every category as having equal importance, and I do not calculate the final rating using a strict mathematical formula. Strong, verifiable evidence can outweigh several weaker impressions. Although the rating should not be interpreted as absolute proof, it is grounded in a thorough examination of multiple independent factors rather than a visual guess alone.

A final note: You will probably notice that many of these are things you can also examine yourself. Even without extensive experience recognizing the visual markers of AI generation, I think most people can use the factors I have laid out to reach a more informed conclusion about whether a piece of wall art may be AI-generated, and I encourage you to try. With that said, if you ever want my input or are uncertain in your judgment, please don’t hesitate to make a submission to my AI wall art assessment form. I am also giving out 60%-off coupons for my website to anyone who submits the form and demonstrates that they have purchased wall art that I rate a 3 or higher on my judgment scale.

Overall, I hope this helps you feel empowered to make more informed purchasing decisions about the wall art you bring into your home. Of course, if you ever want to know for certain that you are buying artwork created by a real human being, you can always buy your prints from AnnaPrintsCo. ;)

Image courtesy of Immo Wegmann via UpSplash.