TechCrunch AI · 10/7/2026, 2:00:00 PM
Google Launches Public SynthID Site to Verify AI Media
Google has opened its SynthID verification website to the public, allowing users to detect whether images, videos, and audio clips are AI-generated. Previously limited to journalists and researchers, the tool now supports major formats like JPG, MP4, and WAV, leveraging digital watermarking to combat AI content proliferation. However, such detection tools remain imperfect, often failing to identify cropped or modified content generated by their own models.
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Google’s new SynthID website can identify AI-generated media
Google on Tuesday launched a new site that lets anyone verify whether a piece of media, be it an image, a video or an audio clip, is generated using AI.
The company had made this tool available to select journalists, media professionals and researchers for testing at Google I/O last year, and is now opening up access to the tool to everyone.
The site supports JPG, JPEG, PNG, BMP, WEBP, AVIF, HEIC, HEIF, TIFF, TIF, and GIF formats for images; MP4, MOV, and WEBM for videos; and WAV, MP3, OGG, FLAC, AAC, and M4A for audio.
Image Credits: GoogleImage Credits:Google
Google is using SynthID, which it introduced in 2023, to identify whether media is AI-generated. The company’s Nano Banana, Veo and Lyria models, as well as tools with generation capabilities, like Gemini, Flow, ProducerAI and Vids, all use SynthID to watermark any media they generate.
OpenAI, NVIDIA and Kakao also support SynthID, and OpenAI maintains its own site for checking content. Apple is said to be adding support soon, too.
Google has baked SynthID verification into the Gemini app and Google Chrome. The company said people currently make 1 million requests to verify content every day.
Microsoft and Meta have their own standards for watermarking and verifying content. However, these tools are not infallible, often failing to identify content created by their makers’ models.