Anthropic announced that its upcoming AI models will embed invisible watermarks in all generated text to identify it as AI-produced. This move is driven by new transparency regulations in the European Union but will be applied globally wherever Claude models operate. While the U.S. currently lacks federal laws mandating such disclosures, some states like California have enacted labeling requirements. Anthropic has committed to the EU AI Act’s Code of Practice on Transparency, which includes watermarking standards, and plans to implement these in Claude models released after August 2, 2026. Existing models have a grace period until December 2, 2026, to comply. The company also mentioned that these watermarks will persist when text is copied or pasted, with further technical details forthcoming. Additionally, Anthropic will add provenance data to AI-generated images, video, and audio using the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA) standard to meet California’s transparency laws. Major AI companies like OpenAI, Google, and Microsoft have also signed the EU’s Code of Practice, while others such as Elon Musk’s xAI and Meta are not among the signatories.
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