Google has opened its SynthID Detector to the public, turning a tool previously available only to a small test group of journalists, media professionals and researchers into a website anyone can use to check whether an image, video or audio file carries a watermark marking it as AI-generated.
The site, synthid.com, went live for everyone on October 7, the company announced. It had first been shown at Google I/O last year for limited testers. The public rollout is currently English-only, 9to5Google reported.
What it checks
The detector accepts a wide range of formats: JPG, JPEG, PNG, BMP, WEBP, AVIF, HEIC, HEIF, TIFF, TIF and GIF images; MP4, MOV and WEBM video; and WAV, MP3, OGG, FLAC, AAC and M4A audio. It recognises SynthID watermarks embedded by Google's Nano Banana, Veo and Lyria models, as well as generation-capable tools including Gemini, Flow, ProducerAI and Vids, TechCrunch reported.
Watermark partners OpenAI, Nvidia and Kakao are also supported, with Apple Intelligence support described as coming soon rather than available now.
Scale and limits
Google says the detector already handles one million verification requests a day across Search, the Gemini app and Chrome, and its official announcement cited more than 180 billion images and videos and 240,000 years of audio watermarked since the 2023 launch, SQ Magazine reported.
The tool has limits: TechCrunch noted that detection only works when the content's maker embeds the watermark, and Microsoft and Meta use their own separate watermarking standards, so the detector will not flag everything.
Sources:
TechCrunch — Google's new SynthID website can identify AI-generated media
9to5Google — Google SynthID AI image detector launches globally
SQ Magazine — Google SynthID Detector public AI media checks
The site, synthid.com, went live for everyone on October 7, the company announced. It had first been shown at Google I/O last year for limited testers. The public rollout is currently English-only, 9to5Google reported.
What it checks
The detector accepts a wide range of formats: JPG, JPEG, PNG, BMP, WEBP, AVIF, HEIC, HEIF, TIFF, TIF and GIF images; MP4, MOV and WEBM video; and WAV, MP3, OGG, FLAC, AAC and M4A audio. It recognises SynthID watermarks embedded by Google's Nano Banana, Veo and Lyria models, as well as generation-capable tools including Gemini, Flow, ProducerAI and Vids, TechCrunch reported.
Watermark partners OpenAI, Nvidia and Kakao are also supported, with Apple Intelligence support described as coming soon rather than available now.
Scale and limits
Google says the detector already handles one million verification requests a day across Search, the Gemini app and Chrome, and its official announcement cited more than 180 billion images and videos and 240,000 years of audio watermarked since the 2023 launch, SQ Magazine reported.
The tool has limits: TechCrunch noted that detection only works when the content's maker embeds the watermark, and Microsoft and Meta use their own separate watermarking standards, so the detector will not flag everything.
Sources:
TechCrunch — Google's new SynthID website can identify AI-generated media
9to5Google — Google SynthID AI image detector launches globally
SQ Magazine — Google SynthID Detector public AI media checks
