Google lets users hide Gemini watermarks on AI images and video

Google has introduced a new setting that lets users toggle off visible watermarks from content generated with its AI tools. According to the update, users can now disable the "Media watermark" setting in Gemini and Google's AI video generator Flow, which removes the "sparkle" watermark that previously appeared in the bottom-right corner of images and videos created with Google's Nano Banana and Omni models. The change makes watermarks optional rather than mandatory. However, Google will continue to embed invisible watermarks in all AI-generated content. Specifically, SynthID and C2PA metadata will remain embedded in the background, according to Josh Woodward, the vice president of Google Labs, Gemini, and AI Studio. Users can still verify whether content is AI-generated by asking Gemini or Search to check for these invisible markers. While the removal of visible watermarks may make it harder for people to spot AI-generated content at a glance, the article notes that many users have already been manually editing out visible watermarks themselves. Other major AI image generators, including OpenAI and Meta, have chosen not to apply visible watermarks; OpenAI relies on SynthID and C2PA, while Meta launched its own Content Seal standard. Anthropic also announced this week that it is applying invisible watermarks to both AI-generated text and images, further aligning the industry around invisible labeling approaches. Google plans to roll out the watermark toggle to Search as well in the future, though the company has clarified that the toggle will not launch in countries that require visible watermarks by law.