Google now lets users remove visible watermarks from Gemini creations
Google has made visible watermarks optional for images, videos and music created with Gemini, while keeping invisible SynthID watermarks and C2PA metadata embedded in the content
Google is making visible watermarks optional for Gemini-generated images, videos and music, while invisible SynthID watermarks and C2PA metadata remain embedded
Harsh ShivamNew Delhi3 min read Last Updated : Aug 17 2026 | 11:00 AM IST
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Google has started rolling out an option that allows users to remove visible watermarks from images, videos and music generated with Gemini. The company announced the change through its Gemini account on X, saying users can toggle the “Show watermark” setting on or off for future creations.
The change is being rolled out over the next few days. It applies to Gemini-generated images, videos and music, although Google said visible watermarks will remain in countries where displaying them is required by law. The setting is available under Gemini’s Settings menu as “Media Watermark”, with separate On and Off options.
Josh Woodward, Google’s vice president leading Gemini, AI Studio and Google Labs, said the option is also coming to Flow, with Google Search next. He said the change followed user feedback, with removing visible watermarks among the most requested changes in a survey of Gemini complaints.
Rolling out over the next few days, you can decide if your image, video, and music creations made with Gemini will have visible watermarks. Invisible SynthID watermarks and C2PA metadata will always stay embedded in the background.
Simply go to your settings and toggle “Show… https://t.co/b0tHkwnFBU— Google Gemini (@GeminiApp) August 14, 2026
Invisible watermarks remain
Turning off the visible watermark does not remove all provenance markers from Gemini creations. Google said invisible SynthID watermarks and C2PA metadata will continue to be embedded in the background. This means content can still carry information indicating its AI provenance even when the visible mark is removed.
ALSO READ: Google unveils Gemini 3.7 Flash AI model for coding, agent workflows
Woodward said the approach is intended to balance creative control with transparency. He also said users can use Gemini or Search to check whether an image was generated by AI.
Google is also open-sourcing Credentio, a C++ library for working with C2PA Content Credentials. According to Google’s developer blog, the library is designed for local validation of provenance records and can be used without sending media files to cloud servers or external validation endpoints.
Google said Credentio is based on code used across nearly 40 C2PA-enabled Google products and has supported billions of generated assets, including images, videos, audio files and documents. The library currently focuses on validating C2PA credentials and can inspect manifests, digital signatures and other embedded claims.
Anthropic’s invisible watermark for text
The move comes as other AI companies are also adopting invisible markers for AI-generated content. Anthropic recently announced that new Claude models will embed machine-readable watermarks in generated text that can survive copying and some editing.
ALSO READ: Anthropic’s Claude will invisibly watermark AI-generated text: How it works
Anthropic said the marking system is embedded at the model level and is intended as a provenance signal rather than a definitive AI detector. It cautioned that the presence of a Claude watermark only indicates that content may have been processed by Claude, while its absence does not prove that content was written without AI.
The company said the system forms part of its commitments under the European Union’s AI Act’s Article 50(2) Code of Practice on Transparency of AI-Generated Content. It applies to supported Claude models across Claude, the API, Claude Code, Claude Cowork and Claude Tag.
Topics :Google’s AIGemini AIartifical intelligence
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First Published: Aug 17 2026 | 10:53 AMIST
