Google opens SynthID Detector to everyone: upload an image, video or audio file to check for an AI watermark
Google launched the SynthID Detector website, letting anyone upload an image, video or audio file to check whether it carries a SynthID watermark; since Google I/O last year the tool had been open only to select journalists, media professionals and researchers for testing.
According to TechCrunch, Google on Tuesday launched a new site that lets anyone check whether an image, a video or an audio clip was generated with AI. At Google I/O last year the tool was made available only to select journalists, media professionals and researchers for testing; it is now open to everyone.
Supported formats are JPG, JPEG, PNG, BMP, WEBP, AVIF, HEIC, HEIF, TIFF, TIF and GIF for images; MP4, MOV and WEBM for video; and WAV, MP3, OGG, FLAC, AAC and M4A for audio.
It relies on SynthID, the watermark Google introduced in 2023. Google’s Nano Banana, Veo and Lyria models, and tools with generation features such as Gemini, Flow, ProducerAI and Vids, watermark the media they generate with SynthID. OpenAI, Nvidia and Kakao also support SynthID, and OpenAI maintains its own site for checking content; Apple is reportedly adding support soon.
Google had already built SynthID verification into the Gemini app and Chrome, and says people currently make about 1 million verification requests a day. Such tools only recognize content that carries the matching watermark: Microsoft and Meta have their own watermarking and verification standards, and these tools are not infallible, often failing to identify content made by their makers’ own models.