Just zoom in on the keyboard. It’s pretty characteristic of AI generated images.

Edit: Just saw the other comments saying the same, whoops

Also the pupil-like white dots, not at the same place between the two eyes.

All of these could have easily fixed with a bit of time in photoshop/image editing software, which leads me to believe it has not been retouched at all an is a direct output from the AI. Quite impressive.

The fingers look a bit weird and the keys are totally off. Still an OK illustration though. There are far worse being published.

The keys on the keyboard and the index finger on the (character’s) left hand immediately jumped at me. They’re distorted.

'I can tell from some of the pixels and from seeing quite a few shops in my time.'

One of the things you will start to notice after seeing loads of these is the wrong perspective. There are bunch of odities too other than keyboard or fingers.

It is difficult to explain but let me try. It looks like the fire is facing laptop screen, but look closely, is it really facing laptop screen or you. It is so confusing, you can never tell.

If this was actually a 3d rendering, all lines would follow the perspective from camera in a certain direction. Look at where keyboard is going. It seems to be going upwards somewhere. If you extend the top and bottom end of keyboard behind the screen, those lines won't make a correct rectangle.

Look at the yellow part of the flame just blending into red/orange near eye on the right side of image. Try following any shadows or edges of things. They are often wrong.

After seeing a lot of AI art, you start to notice things, it's like the same thing that happened with photoshop years ago, a lot of people can identify if an image photoshopped just looking at it. Both are not an exact science, so there are still false positives and false negatives. As generate AI progresses it will become harder to identify, while with photoshop it depends on the user's skill.

In this case, what makes me think it's AI generated, is an inconsistent mix between a 3d style render and digital painted art. The way it's lit. And after I already suspected, I looked at the keyboard because it's usually where AI fumbles the bag.

Immediate giveaway is that the fireball has a lazy eye. Then you can look at the keyboard.