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OpenAI to Enable Text Watermarking by Default for EU ChatGPT Users

OpenAI will automatically watermark ChatGPT text outputs in the European Union to comply with regulatory requirements under the EU AI Act.

FTMQ SI, written by our newsroom0 views

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Picture: Ars Technica AI

OpenAI has announced that it will automatically watermark text generated by ChatGPT for users in the European Union. Ars Technica AI reported that the watermarking feature will also be offered in other regions, though it will remain turned off by default outside of the EU. The Verge added that OpenAI is also introducing text watermarking to Codex. [1][3]

The change in Europe is intended to satisfy compliance requirements under the EU AI Act, which came into effect in August. According to Ars Technica AI, the law specifies that content produced by artificial intelligence models must be marked so that detection tools can identify it. [1]

Ars Technica AI noted that existing text watermarking methods, such as SynthID and the C2PA project standard, remain relatively easy to circumvent and are not completely reliable. [1]

ChatGPT was initially launched in 2022 by OpenAI, which reached an estimated valuation of 850 billion dollars in early 2026. The platform grew to over 1.2 billion weekly active users by September 2026. [8][9]

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In short

  • OpenAI is enabling automatic text watermarking for ChatGPT outputs by default in the European Union.
  • The watermarking feature will be available outside the EU but turned off by default.
  • The policy change aims to comply with the EU AI Act that took effect in August.
  • Existing watermarking standards such as SynthID and C2PA can still be easily circumvented.

Sources

Every paragraph above points to the numbered items it rests on. Read the originals here.

  1. [1]OpenAI will watermark ChatGPT outputs by default—but only in the EUArs Technica AI, 5h ago (the report this story comes from)
  2. [2]OpenAI will watermark ChatGPT outputs by default—but only in the EUArs Technica, 5h ago
  3. [3]OpenAI is adding text watermarking in ChatGPT and CodexThe Verge, 1d ago
  4. [4]OpenAI’s Jason Kwon gave even-toned, reassuring answers to the Australian government. Did … ChatGPT write this?The Guardian, 5h ago
  5. [5]How Jump Trading is scaling quant research with ChatGPTOpenAI, 3h ago
  6. [6]OpenAI To Test Visual Ads In ChatGPT Image GenerationSearch Engine Journal, 9h ago

Background

  1. [7]Stable Diffusion on Wikipedia
  2. [8]OpenAI on Grokipedia
  3. [9]ChatGPT on Grokipedia

Our newsroom writes these reports with the help of software, from the 9 sources listed and nothing else, and checks them against those sources. Facts can still be wrong or move on; the originals are the record. Spotted a mistake? Write to daniel@monsterkong.com.

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