Google expands SynthID Detector access globally in English

Google says SynthID Detector is now available worldwide in English, expanding access beyond its earlier release to media professionals. The announcement is dated Oct. 7, 2026, and describes the change as making the tool available to everyone. Google introduced an early version last year to help media professionals verify AI-generated content. The detector can check image, video, and audio files for content made with AI from Google or its partners. For AI builders and other people assessing online media, the expansion provides a way to seek more context about supported content.

SynthID is Google’s watermarking technology, which the company says uses imperceptible marks across images, video, and audio. Google said it began using SynthID in 2023. It reported that more than 180 billion images and videos have been watermarked, along with 240,000 years of audio content. Those figures describe the reach of Google’s watermarking work; the announcement does not give a separate accuracy figure for the detector.

Google said the detector covers AI media from its own tools and partner tools, naming OpenAI, NVIDIA, and Kakao, with Apple support planned soon. The company’s description says a person can check an image, video, or audio file, but does not detail a limit on file size or describe how long a check takes. The stated access condition is global availability in English. Anyone seeking to check supported media can use the tool under that condition, according to Google.

The announcement also places SynthID Detector alongside verification features in Search, the Gemini app, and Chrome. Google said those built-in features regularly handle more than 1 million requests daily. That figure refers to the features in those products, rather than a stated usage count for SynthID Detector. Google presents these tools as ways to give people additional context about media they encounter online. For builders, the practical distinction is that the detector is described as checking for AI content from Google and its partners, not as a general verification service for every AI system.