Google recently launched Gemini 3, giving its AI chatbot even more power to work with, including generative UI. But it isn’t this new power that’s the most exciting change coming to the Gemini model right now. In fact, one of the more exciting updates to Google’s AI is actually in what it can now do, as Google has finally given the chatbot the capability needed to determine if an image was created with AI.
Admittedly, the idea of using AI to tell if something was made with AI is a bit laughable in and of itself. That said, having more tools that can help determine if something was created by AI is becoming more important as an increasing number of AI tools pop up, allowing users to create believable content that’s easy enough to pass off as human-made. The option to check images for an invisible watermark in AI-generated content is now rolling out for Gemini.
AI telling on AI
The option is rolling out as an evolution of Google’s previously released SynthID Detector, which the company debuted earlier this year. SynthID is a digital watermark that is added to images, videos, and even audio and text that was generated with AI. The watermark has been added to several systems, even coming to Gemini itself, and Google’s detector system can easily discover whether these hidden watermarks are present in the images that you upload to Gemini.
The new detector is available as one of the connected apps that you can bring directly into Gemini, allowing you to upload a photo and then tag @SynthID in the chatbot to check if something is AI-generated. Unlike traditional watermarks — which appear visually in the image — SynthID hides the watermark in the image’s metadata, making it harder to wipe out entirely.
This means that the AI detector can look for pieces of the watermark, and will even note around how much it was found in the piece. So, if an image was edited using AI, then the watermark might only appear in the edited content. Of course, the downside here is that not everyone is using SynthID. Thankfully, Google is working on getting more partners to adopt it.
