India needs to develop content tracking system for Gen AI using watermarking: Report

MUMBAI: A new report by EY and FICCI, titled ‘Identifying AI Generated Content in the Digital Age: The Role of Watermarking’, highlights the need for coordinated efforts between the public and private sectors to develop and implement watermarking techniques that balance content protection with privacy concerns.

The report highlights India’s potential to play a pivotal role in building a secure and trustworthy AI ecosystem. It notes that with the rapid advancement of AI technologies, concerns around the authenticity of digital content are on the rise.

It further calls for a multi-layered approach, combining technological innovations with global frameworks. Policymakers worldwide are beginning to develop open-source tools and regulations to support the widespread adoption of watermarking, it noted.


It also underscores an urgent need to distinguish AI-generated content from human-created content through AI content detection tools, which are seen as essential for promoting trust and supporting informed decision-making in India’s increasingly digital landscape.

As AI-generated content—whether in the form of text, images, video, or audio—becomes harder to differentiate from human-created content, new challenges arise, such as misinformation, copyright infringement, and a decline in the credibility of digital content, the report said.

Rajnish Gupta, Partner, Tax and Economic Policy Group, EY India, said, “Watermarking is a key solution that enables developers to encrypt watermarks, providing better detection and authenticity of AI-generated content. Robust watermarking must resist tampering, and detection systems should maintain low false-positive rates while functioning across different Gen AI platforms. India aims to lead in this area by promoting the development and adoption of advanced watermarking techniques to ensure secure and authentic AI content creation.”

"As generative AI reshapes the digital landscape, we as a nation must come together and establish robust safeguards to trace content origins, ensuring transparency and trust in the AI-driven world. Let us lead with responsibility for a secure and innovative future," said Jyoti Vij, Director General, FICCI.

The report also highlights concerns such as deepfakes, social manipulation, and false attribution, which make content authenticity systems, like watermarking, critical in tracing the origins of AI-generated material.