OpenAI launches text watermarking to comply with EU AI Act

OpenAI said it will automatically watermark ChatGPT-generated text in the EU. The feature is available elsewhere but is off by default. The EU change is intended to comply with the EU AI Act, which takes effect in August. OpenAI's in-house method, textGrain, embeds patterns in word choice that are difficult for people to notice and are designed not to noticeably affect output quality. Holders of a key can identify the patterns with a dedicated detector.

OpenAI announced that it will add invisible watermarks to text generated by ChatGPT and Codex in the EU to comply with the transparency rules of the EU AI Act, which take effect on August 2. The feature will roll out in the coming weeks to eligible users on all EU plans. Developers using the global API can enable it today for some models; it is off by default.

OpenAI is adding invisible, machine-readable text watermarking called textGrain to ChatGPT and Codex outputs. It will initially be available to EU users, with a rollout to all EU plans over the coming weeks.

OpenAI announced an expansion of its content provenance program to include text, in response to EU regulation, while acknowledging significant limitations in current text-watermarking technology. Over the coming weeks, OpenAI will begin watermarking eligible ChatGPT and Codex text to comply with the EU AI Act. API customers worldwide can enable text watermarks today for some models. Its existing tools can already verify whether images or audio were generated by its models.

OpenAI will enable invisible text watermarking for ChatGPT and Codex users in the EU as required by the EU AI Act. The technology, called textGrain, will launch in the coming weeks. API users worldwide can opt in, unlike Anthropic, which requires watermarks globally for Claude.