Google opens SynthID Detector to everyone. It spots AI media from four companies

Google said on 7 October that SynthID Detector, its website for checking AI-made media, is now open to everyone. It works worldwide, in English, and checks images, video and audio files for a hidden watermark. Until now only journalists, media staff and researchers on a waitlist could use it.

SynthID Detector reads marks from Google, OpenAI, Nvidia and Kakao tools

SynthID is an invisible watermark. Google adds it to output from its Gemini, Imagen, Veo and Lyria models. OpenAI, Nvidia and Kakao use the same mark in their consumer tools. Google says Apple will join “soon”, but it gave no date.

Users upload a file at synthid.com. If the mark is found, the result panel says the media was “made or edited with Google AI”. MacRumors reports that users have to sign in first.

Google counts 180 billion marked images and videos since 2023

Pushmeet Kohli, a vice president at Google DeepMind, wrote the announcement. He said Google has marked more than 180 billion images and videos, plus 240,000 years of audio. Checks built into Search, the Gemini app and Chrome already handle over one million requests a day. These are Google’s own figures.

The tool has clear limits. Google’s site says it “is not a general AI detector”. A file with no mark may still come from a model that uses a different standard. The result also does not say whether a picture was fully generated or only touched up. Search Engine Journal noted that the announcement mentions English only.

Brand teams can check supplier files before sign-off

For anyone approving campaign assets, this is a free check that did not exist for most people a week ago. Labelling of AI content is also moving beyond images: OpenAI will watermark ChatGPT text in the EU. Synthetic people in ads already have their own market, as the marketplace for licensed AI faces shows.

One step is worth adding to approval checklists now. Ask creative suppliers to list the AI tools they used, then run final files through the detector. A negative result proves little, because Midjourney and Runway are not SynthID partners, so the supplier’s own statement still matters most.