Google will allow users to remove visible watermarks from AI-generated content

Google announced on Friday a new feature that will let users remove the visible watermark from content produced by its artificial intelligence models, including images, videos, and songs. The company emphasized that this change will not affect the invisible SynthID watermark or C2PA metadata, which will continue to serve as content authentication.

Josh Woodward, Google's vice president for Gemini, explained in a post on X that the option to disable the visible watermark will be available for the Nano Banana, Omni, and Lyria models. The feature can be activated both in the Gemini platform and in Google's video editor Flow, with support for Search coming later.

Woodward noted that the company is trying to strike a balance between creative freedom and safety. Visible watermarks often make content less useful for professional and creative work, but the need to identify AI-generated content remains. He stressed that while visible watermarks are becoming optional, invisible SynthID watermarks and C2PA metadata will continue to provide transparency, and users will still be able to check whether an image was created with AI using Gemini or Search.

The new feature will be rolled out in the coming days. Users can go to Settings > Media Watermark to turn the visible mark on or off.

Additionally, Google has open-sourced a new library called Credentio, which will allow developers to embed a local validation mechanism in their apps. This step follows Anthropic's move to introduce watermarks in text and files generated by its Claude model to comply with EU regulations.