Google has opened its SynthID Detector to everyone, giving the public a free website that checks whether an image, video or audio file carries Google’s SynthID watermark. The watermark is a hidden signal that Google’s AI tools add to the media they create. The tool became available globally in English on Wednesday, according to a company blog post written by Pushmeet Kohli of Google DeepMind. Kohli said that as AI tools become better and easier to use, clear context about the content people see online helps them make informed decisions about what to trust.
The detector flags media made with AI from Google and its partners OpenAI, Nvidia and Kakao, and Google said support for Apple is coming soon. Google first introduced an early version in May 2025 for journalists, media professionals and researchers. Since 2023, the company says it has watermarked more than 180 billion images and videos with SynthID, along with 240,000 years of audio. Its checks in Search, the Gemini app and Chrome now handle more than one million requests a day. Using the new website requires signing in with a Google, OpenAI or Apple account, as reported by Engadget. SynthID marks content from Google’s Gemini, Imagen, Lyria and Veo models, and OpenAI adopted the technology in May. OpenAI also runs its own verification page, which checks images and audio for SynthID and C2PA signals.
The tool has clear limits. It only finds the SynthID watermark, and other companies use different standards, so it cannot catch all AI generated content. Watermarks can also be stripped in some cases, according to Engadget. A result does not say whether a file was made entirely with AI or only edited with it, and Google’s sample result says the media was made or edited with Google AI, while also warning that the file may have changed since. These caveats mean a missing watermark should not be read as proof that a file is authentic, since content from tools that use other standards would not be flagged.
The release comes as several companies work on ways to label synthetic media. Meta runs its own checker for images from its Muse Image models, though Reuters found in July that the tool missed its own cropped fakes. This week, OpenAI also began watermarking ChatGPT text in the EU. Taken together, these moves show the industry building several separate detection systems at once, each tied to its own tools and standards. Opening SynthID Detector to the public extends Google’s checking beyond professional users, but its usefulness will depend on how widely other companies adopt compatible watermarks, and on whether users treat its results as one signal among several rather than a final answer.
Follow the SPIN IDG WhatsApp Channel for updates across the Smart Pakistan Insights Network covering all of Pakistan’s technology ecosystem.
