Google adds a watermarking system for AI-designed proteins

SynthID Bio is meant to let synthetic biology outputs be tracked without changing how the proteins work.

Google has introduced SynthID Bio, a watermarking system for AI-designed proteins that is meant to help track synthetic biology outputs without changing how the proteins work. The company says the technique can embed a verifiable, imperceptible mark into protein sequences and predicted 3D structures, addressing a biosecurity gap in current sequence-scanning tools. In lab tests across target proteins, the watermarked designs performed comparably to unwatermarked versions and preserved natural diversity. The release matters because AI protein design can produce useful enzymes but could also be adapted for toxins or altered viral proteins, and there has been no reliable way to identify AI-made proteins so far.