Google opens SynthID Detector to everyone
Checks images, video and audio for watermarks from Google, OpenAI, Nvidia and Kakao models
Confirmed
The takeaway
On Oct 7, 2026 Google made its improved SynthID Detector publicly available at synthid.com.
Status
- Claim
Confirmed
- Our reporting
- High confidence
- Importance
- 3 of 5
- Last verified
- 8 October 2026
Your AI and this story
- GPT-6 Astra160 days after its cutoff
- Claude Opus 5.599 days after its cutoff
- Gemini 3.8 Flash190 days after its cutoff
- Grok 4.7129 days after its cutoff
None of these four assistants can know about it. The closest, Claude Opus 5.5, stops 99 days before it.
Key facts
- Public launch Oct 7, 2026 at synthid.com (Ars Technica: ‘now available globally’); previously a limited portal for journalists, media professionals and researchers
- Formats: images (JPG/JPEG, PNG, BMP, WEBP, AVIF, HEIC/HEIF, TIFF/TIF, GIF), video (MP4, MOV, WEBM) and audio (WAV, MP3, OGG, FLAC, AAC, M4A). TechCrunch counts 18 formats; Techmeme’s summary says 20
- Detects content from Google models and products (Nano Banana, Veo, Lyria, Gemini, Flow, ProducerAI, Vids) and from SynthID partners OpenAI, Nvidia and Kakao; Apple support ‘coming soon’ (TechCrunch)
- Gaps: Microsoft and Meta use different watermarking standards, so their output is not covered
- Usage: SynthID verification already gets about 1 million requests a day; checks are also built into the Gemini app and Chrome (TechCrunch)
What happened
Google turned SynthID Detector from a restricted tool into a public website. Anyone can upload media and check for the invisible SynthID watermark. Coverage now reaches beyond Google because OpenAI, Nvidia and Kakao embed SynthID in their generators.
Why it matters
A single public checker that covers several labs’ watermarks is a step toward cross-industry provenance. Major generators still use other schemes (Meta, Microsoft), and many open-weight models carry no watermark, so a negative result proves little.
Sources
2 sources from 2 sites. Numbers match the chips in the text.
2 sources: 2 press
Press
- TechCrunch: Google’s new SynthID website can identify AI-generated mediatechcrunch.com, press
- Ars Technica: Google rolls out improved SynthID AI content detector, now available globallyarstechnica.com, press
Changes
- Filed