Google SynthID joins TIME's Best Inventions of 2026

TIME has named Google SynthID one of its Best Inventions of 2026, Google DeepMind announced on 15 October.

What SynthID does

SynthID adds an invisible, durable digital watermark to AI-generated images, audio, video and text when the content is created. Google says the mark does not change how the media looks or sounds. The company reports that SynthID has already watermarked more than 180 billion images and videos and 240,000 years of audio. A related project, SynthID Bio, applies the same idea to synthetic biology.

How people can check

Verification tools are built into Google Search, the Gemini app and Chrome. There is also a public SynthID Detector for content from Google and partners. Google frames the award as part of giving users more transparency about what was made by AI.

Context

As generative models get more realistic, watermarks and detectors are one industry approach to labelling synthetic media. SynthID is Google's offering; TIME's list judges inventions on originality, efficacy, ambition and impact according to the magazine's own methodology.