Google’s Gemini AI is really good at watermark removal

Google is shipping the latest “experimental” features of its Gemini 2.0 Flash AI model to more developers across all regions, and people are finding some concerning abilities that include editing out watermarks from photos.

The company’s lightweight localized on-device AI model is now equipped with native image generation that can not only produce pictures from a text prompt but also let you conversationally edit images. Over the weekend, users found that it can also remove watermarks with precision, TechCrunch reports.

Gemini 2.0 Flash, however, seems to be better than other options at removing complex watermarks like Getty Images stamps and filling in the image. After it removes the watermark, it will add a SynthID mark, effectively replacing a copyright mark with an “edited with AI” one. But it’s possible to remove AI marks using AI, too, as we’ve seen before with Samsung’s object erase tool.

Flash’s latest image features are only available for developers through AI Studio for now — so its apparent lack of guardrails isn’t quite open for everyone to use (or abuse). We’ve asked Google if there are protections in place to stop things like watermark removal and will update this article when we hear back.