Google has taken a major step forward in the battle against AI-generated misinformation with the launch of SynthID Detector, a comprehensive verification portal unveiled at Google I/O 2025 in May.
The new tool enables users to quickly identify whether images, audio, video, or text have been created using Google's AI tools by detecting invisible watermarks embedded during the content creation process. SynthID Detector not only confirms if content contains watermarks but also highlights specific portions most likely to have been AI-generated.
"Advances in generative AI are making it possible for people to create content in entirely new ways," said Pushmeet Kohli, VP of Science and Strategic Initiatives at Google DeepMind. "As these capabilities advance and become more broadly available, questions of authenticity, context, and verification emerge."
The technology represents a significant achievement in scale, with Google revealing that over 10 billion pieces of content have already been watermarked with SynthID since its initial launch in 2023. This watermarking system works across Google's AI ecosystem, including content generated by Gemini, Imagen, Lyria, and Veo models.
To expand SynthID's reach beyond its own products, Google has open-sourced the text watermarking framework and partnered with companies like NVIDIA to watermark videos generated by their AI models. The company has also collaborated with GetReal Security to enhance detection capabilities for SynthID watermarks.
While SynthID Detector offers promising solutions for content verification, Google acknowledges its limitations. The system primarily works within Google's ecosystem and can be bypassed through extreme modifications to images or thorough text rewrites. Despite these challenges, the tool represents an important step toward establishing trust in an increasingly AI-generated digital landscape.
Journalists, media professionals, and researchers interested in early access to SynthID Detector can join Google's waitlist as the company prepares for a broader rollout in the coming weeks.