TIME has named Google SynthID one of the Best Inventions of 2026.

TIME has named Google SynthID to its annual list of Best Inventions.

As generative AI makes digital media more realistic, knowing how content was made helps you navigate the web with confidence.

Google SynthID embeds an invisible, durable digital watermark into AI-generated images, audio, video, and text at the moment of creation, without altering the quality. To date, SynthID has watermarked more than 180 billion images and videos and 240,000 years of audio. We also recently announced SynthID Bio, bringing SynthID’s watermarking technology to synthetic biology.

To help people identify AI content, verification tools are built directly into Google Search, the Gemini app, and Chrome. You can also use the SynthID Detector to check content from Google and our partners.

Together, these tools help give you more transparency and context around the content you encounter online. You can read more about this and other inventions on TIME’s website.