Pangram, the maker of a widely used tool for detecting AI-generated text, has released new tools for flagging AI-generated images and video, according to Engadget. Subscribers can now upload a video and get an assessment of whether artificial intelligence (AI) was used to create or edit it. Pangram says the tool can tell apart clips that are partly AI-made from those that are entirely AI-generated, and it includes a heatmap that shows which parts of a video are most likely to be AI. The company claims its video model is especially good at detecting content from the newest AI video generators, and in one internal test it flagged AI content with more than 98 percent accuracy. These are the company’s own figures, and Engadget did not report independent testing.
The image tool builds on a research preview of Pangram’s image model, Pangram Image 1.0, which is now available through the company’s Chrome extension. The extension can scan images automatically as a user browses and flag those that are likely to be AI-generated. In its own testing, Pangram says the model flagged more than 99 percent of AI images with a false positive rate of 0.27 percent, meaning that very few real photos were wrongly labelled as AI. The company also warns that for images below 512 by 512 pixels, results will carry a reduced-confidence disclaimer, which may explain why a demonstration of the extension on Pinterest showed an unsure result for two images that were clearly not genuine photographs.
Chief executive Max Spero said that building the image model was difficult because most phone cameras, including iPhones, apply some AI processing to real photos to add detail. The model therefore has to separate this routine processing from AI edits and from fully AI-generated pictures, and it must not mistake ordinary photos for fakes. Spero told Pirate Wires that the company delayed the release of the image model so that it could test it on several iPhone 18 Pro phones, because an earlier version flagged photos from those cameras as AI. The problem is a general one for detection tools, since the line between a photo enhanced by a camera and an image produced by a generator is becoming less clear as both use similar techniques.
The new features are available now to Pangram subscribers, and users with a free account can check a small number of images without paying. The release reflects how detection companies are moving beyond text as AI-generated video and pictures become more common on social media, and how fake or altered media is a concern for newsrooms, schools, and platforms. Detection tools have limits, and their results are probabilities, not proof, so they are best used alongside other checks such as source verification. Pangram has not said how many images and videos it tested, whether outside researchers have reviewed its results, or what the new tools will cost, so the claims about accuracy will need independent evaluation.
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