What happened
Google released SynthID Detector worldwide in English, letting anyone check whether images, videos, or audio came from generative AI. It reads SynthID watermarks from partners including OpenAI, NVIDIA, Kakao, and Apple, which is listed as coming later.
Why it matters
The tool reads Google's SynthID watermark from those partners' outputs to flag what Google's AI made or edited, giving non-specialists a simple way to check suspicious images, videos, and audio.
WHO IT HITSJournalists, fact-checkers, and anyone verifying images, video, or audio online gain a free worldwide tool to check whether content carries a Google-detectable AI watermark; media professionals already had access through a 2025 program, and this broadens it.
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Google has run its SynthID watermarking technology for generative AI since 2023, and the detector was previously limited to media professionals from 2025. The new release flips that: an English-language version is now open worldwide, so anyone can check. The tool identifies content from Google, OpenAI, NVIDIA, Kakao, and Apple — the latter listed as coming later — by detecting SynthID watermarks those partners' AI systems embed. Separately, Anthropic and OpenAI have introduced watermarking for AI-generated text in some regions. The EU's mandate that generative AI carry watermarking is pushing companies to add the technology, which in turn broadens what a detector like this can catch.
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