Adobe has introduced a new tool designed to ensure that creators receive proper credit for their work, even if someone captures a screenshot and shares it online. The Content Authenticity web app, which is now available in public beta, allows users to embed invisible, tamper-resistant metadata into images and photographs, helping to establish ownership.
Initially announced in October, this web app enhances Adobe’s Content Credentials attribution system. It allows artists and creators to directly embed their information, such as links to social media, websites, and other identifiers. Additionally, the app can track the editing history of images and assist creatives in safeguarding their work from being utilized for AI training purposes.
According to Adobe, the Content Authenticity web app is currently free during its beta phase, though there’s no indication yet whether this will change once it becomes widely available. Users only need an Adobe account, which does not require an active Creative Cloud subscription.
You can apply Content Credentials to images regardless of whether they were edited or created in Adobe’s software. While tools like Photoshop can already embed these credentials, the Content Authenticity web app offers enhanced control over the information to attach and allows users to tag up to 50 images in bulk. Currently, it supports JPEG and PNG files, with plans to add support for larger files and additional formats, including video and audio, in the near future.
Creators can also utilize the app to tag their work, signaling to AI developers that they do not permit its use for AI training. This method is more efficient than individually opting out with each AI provider, though there’s no guarantee that every AI company will honor these tags.
Adobe is collaborating with policymakers and industry partners to create effective, creator-friendly opt-out mechanisms using Content Credentials. For the time being, this serves as one of several protections that creators can employ to prevent AI models from training on their work, working alongside other systems like Glaze and Nightshade. According to Andy Parsons, Senior Director of Content Authenticity at Adobe, third-party AI protections are unlikely to clash with Content Credentials, allowing creators to utilize both seamlessly.
The Content Authenticity app is accessible not only to professional creatives but also to anyone looking to verify whether images found online have Content Credentials attached. Similar to the Content Authenticity extension for Google Chrome that launched last year, the web app’s inspection tool can recover and display Content Credentials, even if image hosting platforms have removed them, along with available editing history that may indicate the use of generative AI tools.
A key advantage is that the Chrome extension and inspection tool do not require support from third-party sources, making it easier to authenticate content on platforms where images are often shared without appropriate credit. As AI editing apps become more prevalent and manipulations harder to detect, Adobe’s Content Authenticity tools could also play a role in reducing the risk of users being misled by credible-looking online deepfakes.
