Google opens SynthID media verification website to everyone

Google has opened its SynthID website to everyone, letting people check whether an image, video or audio clip was generated using artificial intelligence. The company announced the wider access on Tuesday.

Google first made the tool available for testing to selected journalists, media professionals and researchers at Google I/O last year. It uses SynthID, which Google introduced in 2023, to identify AI-generated media.

Google says its Nano Banana, Veo and Lyria models, along with generation tools including Gemini, Flow, ProducerAI and Vids, add SynthID watermarks to the media they create. OpenAI, NVIDIA and Kakao also support SynthID. OpenAI has its own website for checking content, and Apple is reportedly preparing to add support.

SynthID verification is also built into the Gemini app and Google Chrome. Google says people currently make 1 million requests each day to verify content.

Watermarking and verification systems have limits: the source reports that these tools often fail to identify content made by their own creators’ models. Microsoft and Meta use their own standards for watermarking and verification.