AI microscope authentication checks whether a luxury handbag, a pair of sneakers or another branded item is genuine, using a small microscope attached to a phone and a model trained on images of real and fake items. The microscope photographs the surface of the leather, the stitching or the logo, magnified many times. The model compares those photos with what it has learned, and gives a verdict.
A good counterfeit can look exactly like the real item to the eye, and even to an experienced reseller. Under a microscope, it usually does not. Real leather from one brand has a particular grain. Its printed logo has sharp edges, and its stitches are a regular size and angle. A fake may get the shape right but not the surface. The differences are tiny, but they are consistent.
The model learns these differences from examples. Its makers collect many thousands of microscope photos of items that experts have already confirmed as real or fake, brand by brand. The model is trained on these labelled photos, until it can tell the two apart on photos it has never seen. This is an application of computer vision, software that recognises patterns in images.
Here is a typical case. A shop in Delhi that resells luxury handbags receives a bag from a customer who wants to sell it. The shop plans to sell it for ₹1,80,000. An employee clips the microscope to a phone and, following the app's instructions, photographs six spots: two patches of leather, the stitching on a handle, the logo, the zip and the inside label. The app sends the photos to the company's model. A few minutes later, it returns "authentic". The shop issues a certificate with the bag's ID number, and lists the bag for sale.
If the model is not confident, it does not guess. The photos go to a human expert at the authentication company, who decides. This way of working, in which a model gives most answers and a person decides the hard ones, is called human in the loop.
The buyers of this service are resale shops and recommerce marketplaces. A marketplace that authenticates sneakers, such as a bid-ask resale marketplace, may use it alongside its own staff. The microscope is one of three ways of proving an item is genuine. The other two are covered in product authentication: marks built into packaging, and codes on each pack. The microscope suits goods that have no code at all, such as a handbag made years ago.