Skip to main content
Check origin answers one question about a photo or a clip you attach: does it read as something a camera took, or as something that was generated? It is always an explicit ask on media you attach in Cortex Chat. Nothing is checked silently, and a picture Cortex generated for you is not labelled automatically. This page covers running a check, reading the verdict and the figures beside it, what Content Credentials add, the file sizes and formats the check accepts, and the difference between a check that failed and one that could not run at all.

​
Run a check

1

Attach the photo or clip

In the composer’s attach menu choose Check origin and pick the file. Attaching the file the ordinary way and asking whether it is real, AI-generated or a deepfake works just as well.
2

Wait for the tile

The card shows Checking origin…. Cortex holds the rest of its reply until the verdict resolves, so you never get a confident paragraph followed by a result that contradicts it.
3

Read the verdict

The finished card carries the verdict, the figures behind it, whether the file arrived with Content Credentials, and a credit for the service that performed the check.

​
Reading the verdict

There are exactly three verdicts, and the middle ground is one of them rather than a rounded guess. Under the verdict, the card prints the AI likelihood as a percentage and a similarity figure, as AI likelihood {percent}% · Similarity {similarity}. The card also reports whether the file carried Content Credentials, the provenance information some cameras and editing tools attach to a file. Where there are none, it says No Content Credentials attached., which is not itself a verdict: plenty of genuine photos carry no credentials. Credentials are read from the original file you attached, before Cortex compresses it for the check.
A verdict is about the file, not about the world. Likely a camera photo says the image looks camera-made; it does not vouch for what the picture claims to show, where it was taken, or when.

​
What the check accepts

iPhone HEIC and HEIF photos are a deliberate exception: the ordinary image picker in Chat does not take them, but Check origin does. If you meet the hint HEIC photos can be checked for origin. Use Check origin, or convert to JPEG or PNG., that is the product telling you which path to use. A file larger than the ceiling is refused when it is attached, so there is never anything for the check to read. See payload_too_large and Attachments and files.

​
When the check cannot run

The wording on the card tells you which of three different things happened, and all three mean no verdict rather than a weak one. Cortex fails closed here on purpose. No verdict is still no verdict, and silence is never to be read as a result.

​
What origin check is not

Pictures made with image generation are ordinary Library files. To know whether one of them reads as generated, attach it and ask, the same as any other file.