Listen to a podcast on labeling AI images. It’s about knowing when an image is real or AI!

Google is taking a major step toward tackling concerns over the use of AI to create images, with plans to label AI-generated images in search results.

AI-generated content has been a growing concern, for organizations, lawmakers, artists, and more. AI has become so effective at generating content that it can be difficult to tell what is human-created versus what AI generates.

Google joined the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA) in February 2024. The C2PA is “a global standards body advancing transparency online through certifying the provenance of digital content.” As the world’s largest search engine, Google joining the body is a major step forward in the battle to prevent AI-generated content from being passed off as the real thing.

Google shared in a blog post how it is helping developing C2PA provenance tech and integrate it into the company’s products.

Provenance technology can help explain whether a photo was taken with a camera, edited by software or produced by generative AI. This kind of information helps our users make more informed decisions about the content they’re engaging with — including photos, videos and audio — and builds media literacy and trust.

In joining the C2PA as a steering committee member, we’ve worked alongside the other members to develop and advance the technology used to attach provenance information to content. Through the first half of this year, Google collaborated on the newest version (2.1) of the technical standard, Content Credentials. This version is more secure against a wider range of tampering attacks due to stricter technical requirements for validating the history of the content’s provenance. Strengthening the protections against these types of attacks helps to ensure the data attached is not altered or misleading.

Google will use C2PA tech in Search and Ads specifically, while also looking for ways to integrate it into YouTube.

• Search: If an image contains C2PA metadata, people will be able to use our “About this image” feature to see if it was created or edited with AI tools. “About this image” helps provide people with context about the images they see online and is accessible in Google Images, Lens and Circle to Search.
• Ads: Our ad systems are starting to integrate C2PA metadata. Our goal is to ramp this up over time and use C2PA signals to inform how we enforce key policies.

We’re also exploring ways to relay C2PA information to viewers on YouTube when content is captured with a camera, and we’ll have more updates on that later in the year.

Google’s involvement in C2PA is a big win for content creators and artists, and will hopefully help prevent AI-generated content from being passed off as something it’s not.