Google will now allow users to remove visible watermark from its AI generations

Google has announced that users will now be able to remove a visible watermark from its AI-generated content, including images, videos, and songs. The company clarified that this will not impact the hidden SynthID watermark or the C2PA standard-related metadata. Josh Woodward, Google's VP for Gemini, revealed this information in a post on X. The toggle to remove the visible watermark will be accessible for Google's Nano Banana, Omni, and Lyria models.

Woodward specified that the setting to turn off the visible watermark will be available in Gemini and Google's video editor, Flow, with Search support coming soon. This move aims to find a balance between providing creative control and maintaining transparency about AI-generated content. "We're striking a balance here between creative control and safety: while the visible watermarks are now optional, invisible SynthID watermarks and C2PA metadata are still being used for transparency.

So you can still use Gemini or Search to see if an image was AI-generated," Woodward wrote. The feature is set to roll out in the coming days, and once available, users will be able to access this option through the Settings -> Media Watermark menu. Google is also making Credentio, a new open-source library, available to developers.

This allows developers to incorporate a local validation mechanism into their applications. This is in response to Anthropic's recent decision to include a watermark in text and files generated by their Claude model to comply with EU regulations.