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

Google announced on Friday that users can now remove visible watermarks from AI-generated images, videos, and songs, while preserving invisible SynthID watermarks and C2PA metadata. The toggle will be available in Gemini and Google's video editor Flow, with support for Search coming soon. Josh Woodward, VP for Gemini, said the change balances creative control and safety, and the feature rolls out in the coming days.

Google announced https://x.com/joshwoodward/status/2088259242423968162 on Friday that it will now allow users to remove a visible watermark from its AI generations, including images, videos, and songs. The company specified that this won’t affect the invisible SynthID watermark https://techcrunch.com/snippet/3009804/google-says-synth-id-has-been-used-to-watermark-over-10-billion-pieces-of-content/ and C2PA standard-related metadata. Josh Woodward, the company’s VP for Gemini, said in a post on X https://x.com/joshwoodward/status/2088259242423968162 that this toggle will be available for Nano Banana, Omni, and Lyria models. He specified that the setting to turn the visible watermark off will be available in Gemini and Google’s video editor, Flow https://techcrunch.com/2025/05/20/google-debuts-an-ai-powered-video-tool-called-flow/ , with support for Search coming soon. The change reflects an evolving approach to labeling AI-generated media, as visible watermarks can often make content less useful for professional and creative work, but the need to identify AI-generated content remains. “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,” he wrote. The feature is rolling out in the coming days, and once available, users will be able to go to Settings Media Watermark to turn the visible mark on or off. Google is also open-sourcing a new library called Credentio https://developers.googleblog.com/introducing-credentio-open-source-c-library-for-c2pa-content-credentials-from-google/ to let developers embed a local validation mechanism in their apps. This comes after Anthropic’s hotly debated move https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/12/some-claude-users-are-mad-that-anthropics-new-watermarks-will-catch-them-cheating-at-their-jobs-classes/ to include a watermark in text and files generated by Claude https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/11/anthropic-says-it-will-watermark-text-generated-by-its-ai-models/ to comply with EU regulations.