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How to spot an AI-generated video

AI video tools now make realistic clips of floods, animals, celebrities and politicians. No single sign proves a video is AI-made, but several together should make you check before believing it.

Step by step

  1. Look at hands, teeth and ears. AI still struggles with fingers, teeth and earrings: extra or merging fingers, teeth that blur together, mismatched ears.
  2. Read the text. Signs, shop names and number plates in AI videos are often garbled or change between frames.
  3. Watch the physics. Water, smoke, crowds and animals may move unnaturally: a shark gliding through a street flood, people walking through each other.
  4. Check lip-sync and voice. In deepfakes, lips can drift out of sync, and cloned voices often sound flat, too clean, or wrongly accented.
  5. Look at the edges. Blurry outlines around faces and hair, flickering backgrounds, faces that look pasted on.
  6. Find the source. Who posted it first? AI clips often come from accounts that post similar dramatic videos daily, with no other coverage.
  7. Check fact-checkers. Search the description plus "AI generated" or "fact check". Viral AI videos are usually debunked within a day or two.
Send the video to @checkthis.chat: it tells you if fact-checkers have found it to be AI-generated, edited or old, and links the proof.

Or let checkthis do it

Share the Reel with @checkthis.chat on Instagram. The answer comes back with sources, usually within a minute or two.

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Tricks to watch for

Out-of-context clip

Cutting a video so it seems to say something the full version doesn't.

Whataboutism

Answering a criticism by pointing at someone else's wrongs instead.

Accusing by question ("just asking questions")

Asking a loaded question to plant a claim it never has to prove.

Appeal to authority

Using someone's status instead of evidence.