Google opens SynthID verification site to the public

Google launched a website on Tuesday that lets anyone verify whether an image, a video or an audio clip was generated using AI, according to TechCrunch, which reported the launch on 7 October. The company had previously made the tool available to select journalists, media professionals and researchers for testing at Google I/O last year. It is now open to everyone.

The site uses SynthID, a watermarking technology Google introduced in 2023 that marks AI-generated media so it can be identified, according to TechCrunch. Google's Nano Banana, Veo and Lyria models use SynthID to watermark the media they generate. Tools with generation capabilities, including Gemini, Flow, ProducerAI and Vids, also use it, the outlet reported.

The site supports JPG, JPEG, PNG, BMP, WEBP, AVIF, HEIC, HEIF, TIFF, TIF and GIF formats for images, according to TechCrunch. It supports MP4, MOV and WEBM for video, and WAV, MP3, OGG, FLAC, AAC and M4A for audio. Google has also built SynthID verification into the Gemini app and Google Chrome.

Google said people currently make 1 million requests to verify content every day. OpenAI, Nvidia and Kakao also support SynthID, according to TechCrunch. OpenAI maintains its own site for checking content, and Apple is said to be adding support soon.

Microsoft and Meta have their own standards for watermarking and verifying content, according to TechCrunch. The outlet reported that these tools are not infallible and often fail to identify content created by their makers' models.