Apple's iPhone AI Watermark Has A Catch: Google's Gemini May Not Read It

Apple’s iOS 27.2 update automatically adds invisible SynthID-style watermarks to some AI-edited photos to help verify whether an image was altered or generated with AI. Apple is adopting Google’s SynthID technology and embedding it across iOS-native apps, joining partners including OpenAI, Nvidia, Kakao, and Google in watermarking “generative AI consumer products.” In early reports, content from Image Playground includes the marks, while Photos applies them depending on the tool used: Extend and Spatial Reframing do, and Clean Up only for larger edits. The Verge reports Instagram may flag Apple-AI images, though detection methods are unclear. Google tools like Chrome, Search, and Gemini can check the watermark via a detector site or Gemini, with uploads processed in real time but signatures retained for 24 hours.