One crop took the AI mark off our Gemini image

An image we made with Google Gemini for one of our own articles, with Gemini's sparkle in the bottom-right corner. We checked it, cropped that corner off, and checked the copy.

• As Gemini made it: the sparkle was found.
• Corner cropped off: nothing left to find.

What changed

• The mark. The report found the sparkle in the original. In the cropped copy there was nothing to find.
• The verdict. "Inconclusive" became "No AI-Generation Evidence Found" (now worded "Nothing Found by This Estimate"). A visible mark alone never decides the card, because anyone can paste one onto a picture.
• Nothing else held it. The file carried no Content Credentials when we checked it, and the pixel analysis found no signs in either copy.

What the report said: the original's AI card read C "Inconclusive" and its Watermark card read "Found". The cropped copy's AI card read C "No AI-Generation Evidence Found".

A missing mark proves nothing: it takes one crop to remove.

Go deeper

• All three kinds of AI mark, and how to check for each: Does this image have an AI watermark?
• How each mark gets lost: How AI-Generated Images Say "Made by AI", by Kenneth Springer
• Try it on your own image