Galaxy S26 AI Photos Tagged, But Can Watermarks Be Removed?

Samsung unveiled its new Galaxy S26 smartphones, highlighting innovative Galaxy AI features, particularly within the photo application. The redesigned app now consolidates all editing tools, including AI enhancements, into a new Creative Studio, allowing for seamless capture, editing, and generation of multimedia content.

A significant development is Samsung's approach to AI-generated imagery. To address concerns about deepfakes and misinformation, photos incorporating AI elements will be automatically tagged within the app, clearly indicating them as 'AI-generated content.' This visible label appears in the corner of the image.

Despite this step, questions persist regarding the security of the AI watermark. There is uncertainty whether the visible tag is the sole protective measure, as it can potentially be removed by cropping or even by using AI tools themselves, as seen in tutorials for earlier Samsung models.

This contrasts with other AI tools like OpenAI's Sora and Google's Veo 3, which also use watermarks but for video content, making them potentially harder to remove. Ideally, invisible digital watermarks, such as Google's SynthID, offer more robust detection capabilities. Samsung utilizes Google's Gemini and its Nano Banana AI-image generation model, but it remains unclear if a SynthID equivalent will be implemented for Galaxy AI photos.

While the auto-tagging is a practical measure against the misuse of AI imagery, its current implementation raises questions about its long-term effectiveness in combating misinformation.