Tools like Watermark Remover.io can already scrub marks from companies like Shutterstock, and a research team at Google built a watermark removal algorithm in 2017 to highlight the need for more secure protections. Conversely, some AI tools — like OpenAI’s GPT-4o — will refuse requests to remove them.

People appear to be using Google's new Gemini model to remove watermarks from images, according to reports on social media.

Google’s newest AI model, Gemini 2.0 Flash, is exceptionally good at removing watermarks from copyrighted images including Getty Images, according to multiple users. However, AI watermark removal does raise copyright concerns.