Google Photos to Add SynthID AI Watermark to Images Enhanced With Magic Editor

Google Photos is getting a new functionality that will allow people to check whether an image was enhanced using artificial intelligence (AI) or not. Images edited using Reimagine in Magic Editor will be labelled using SynthID, a watermarking technology by the Mountain View-based tech giant. The label can be viewed within the “About this image” section of the image and can also be detected by specialised tools. The move is likely aimed at reducing the instances of potential deepfakes that can be generated using Google's AI image editing tool.

Google Photos to Add AI Watermark

In a blog post, the tech giant announced that Google Photos will now automatically add AI Watermark to Images enhanced using Magic Editor. This will primarily apply to the Reimagine tool that adds new elements to an image using the Imagen 3 AI model.

However, other usage of Magic Editor will also result in the addition of the watermark. Google has developed a new technology called SynthID, which will add an invisible and imperceptible tag to the image.

While the tag can be seen in the About this Image menu, it can also be detected via specialised detection tools. This watermark cannot be removed by cropping, adding filters, or copying the image as the information is added to the pixels of the image.

Notably, SynthID was developed by Google DeepMind and can be added to AI-generated text, images, audio, and videos. In each case, the watermark is not added superficially but within the structure of the media. For instance, in videos, it is added to each frame of the video.

The move behind adding watermarks to AI images is likely to reduce the instances of people falling for deepfakes. Deepfakes are any type of realistic media that has been digitally generated using AI or enhanced using other digital tools with the intention to spread misinformation or mislead people.

Notably, Google has clarified that if the edits made by Reimagine are too small, SynthID might not be added to the image. This will apply to scenarios such as a user changing the colour of a small flower in the background. Users can check whether the AI watermark has been added by opening the metadata.