The trust layer for media on the internet

Trust has collapsed.

Regulators are mandating provenance.

California SB 942 and the EU AI Act are now in effect as of August 2. Both require durable, machine-readable marks in AI-generated media. Metadata is not enough — Verda's signal-level watermark fulfills the requirements.

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AudioVideoImage
POST/v1/watermark/decode200 OK
Audio watermark
A
Acme Corp Registered original
Verified
Owner
Acme Corp
Created
8 Jun 2026
Integration
On-prem · Bach
Confidence
99.7%
Verified — traced to source
Built for the regulations that are already here
C2PA memberSOC 2 in progress
Who this affects

3 lines of code to integrate.
3% of your revenue as fines if you don't.

Don't get caught off guard. Most teams don't yet realize these mandates already apply to them — and authorities have had standing to act since August 2. Learn what it means for your business.

Build and serve AI models

  • Video model providers
  • Image model providers
  • Audio/voice model providers
  • Music generation providers
  • Multimodal model providers

Serve AI-generated media through their product

  • Marketing content generators
  • AI avatar & virtual human platforms
  • AI presentation & slide tools
  • Social media content tools
  • AI photo editing platforms

Voice agents and realtime AI voice

  • AI call center & customer service
  • AI sales & dialer platforms
  • Conversational voice AI platforms
  • AI dubbing & localization
  • AI podcast & audiobook narration

Edit or transform existing media using AI

  • AI audio editing & regeneration
  • AI video face/voice swap
  • AI post-production tools
  • Speech-to-speech translation
  • AI upscaling & restoration
The laws

Compliance laws

Deepfakes, voice-clone fraud, and synthetic disinformation have outpaced every tool built to catch them. Governments responded the only way that scales — by requiring provenance to live inside the media itself. Here's what's enforceable now, and what's next.

In effect now
Enforceable since Feb 20, 2026
August 2, 2026
Enforceable since Aug 2
2027 → 2028
Scope expands
🇺🇸

SB 942

In effect · Aug 2, 2026
California AI Transparency Act · California, USA

Large GenAI providers must embed a hidden, permanent watermark in AI-generated image, audio, and video — and run a free public detection tool.

Who it affects
Providers of a generative AI system with over 1,000,000 monthly visitors or users that is publicly accessible in California.
The requirement
A permanent latent (hidden) disclosure in every generated file, an optional visible manifest disclosure, a free public AI-detection tool, and licensee contracts that preserve the watermark.
Penalty
$5,000 per violation — and each day in violation counts as a separate, discrete violation.
Read the full law
The solution

Compliance as a service

Embed a durable watermark, register it in a central provenance registry, and verify any file anywhere. Verda delivers the whole compliance stack as a service — three API calls, not a six-month project.

01 · EMBED

Sign at creation

A unique identifier is embedded into the media at creation — imperceptible to humans, resilient to modification.

02 · REGISTER

Record the origin

Verda assigns and stores the registry record: owner, timestamp, integration, file hash, and any metadata you attach.

03 · TRACE

Verify anywhere

Submit any suspect file. Verda extracts the watermark and returns the full provenance chain — owner, time, and method.

04 · 96-HOUR RULE

Built for enforcement

SB 942 gives covered providers 96 hours to revoke a licensee once the disclosure is stripped. Because every Verda mark is independently detectable, licensee output can be checked for the mark at any time — the foundation for meeting that deadline.

SB 942 doesn't ask for an "AI or not" bit. It enumerates four fields the latent disclosure must carry — and a durability-only watermark can't hold them.

SB 942 requires in the latent disclosure
Verda field
Name of the covered provider
Registered owner
Name and version of the GenAI system
Integration + version
Time and date of creation or alteration
Timestamp
Unique identifier
UID

Embedded directly or resolvable via a permanent link. A watermark that only signals "AI-generated" cannot carry these fields.

Survives everything

Compression. Cropping. Re-encoding. Screenshots. Format conversion. Inside the media, not alongside it — the watermark persists across every transformation the open internet throws at it.

C2PA-compatible

Reads and writes C2PA manifests on input and output. Our durable watermark is the resilient layer that persists when metadata gets stripped.

Identity-bound

Every watermark maps to a verified owner and a full provenance chain — from creation to detection. The trust hierarchy behind "Verified by Verda."

Production-ready

Designed for production pipelines. Minimal overhead — light enough to co-locate with any model, at any scale.

Not sure what the law requires of you?

Beyond the API, our team maps your product to SB 942, the EU AI Act, and what's coming next — then shows you exactly what to implement. Full-fledged compliance consulting, included.

Why watermarking

Metadata isn't durable. Watermarks aren't identity.

C2PA metadata gets stripped. Blue checkmarks don't travel with the file. Only a signal-level watermark meets the statutory durability bar.

C2PA metadata
Blue checkmark
Verda
Social media upload
✗ Stripped
✗ Context only
✓ Survives
Screenshot or crop
✗ Destroyed
✗ Lost
✓ Survives
Compression
✗ Corrupted
✗ N/A
✓ Survives
Format change
✗ Erased
✗ N/A
✓ Survives
Every modality

One watermark across image, audio, and video

The same identifier, embedded natively in each medium's own signal — imperceptible in all three, and verified by one registry.

Image

Monet
Usage-based

A signature woven across every pixel — imperceptible, fast, and available as tensor-level integration.

Audio

Bach
Usage-based

A multi-layer payload embedded across the waveform — sub-second encoding, resilient to compression.

Video

Pompeii
Usage-based

Per-frame embedding that runs in-pipeline — faster and cleaner than file-based approaches.

Deployment

Deploy your way

Same SDK, same model, same registry. Choose the tier that fits your privacy, performance, and infrastructure requirements.

Cloud APIencode seconds

Cloud-hosted watermarking

Send media via REST API. Verda handles the GPU, the model, and the registry. You get a watermarked file and a provenance record.

Best forStartups, low volume, demos
REST + Python SDK
Pay per operation, no commitment
Auto-scaling, zero infrastructure
Full registry access and decode
Image
Usage-based
Audio
Usage-based
Video
Usage-based
PricingUsage-based — sign in for rates
Benchmarks

Measured performance

Relative encode latency by deployment tier
Cloud API
Cloud
Managed GPU
Managed
On-Prem
On-prem
Air-Gapped
Air-gapped
Integration

Three lines of code

One interface for cloud, managed GPU, and on-prem. Switch tiers by changing a single parameter.

python
from verda import VerdaClient
 
client = VerdaClient(api_key="sk-...")
 
result = client.encode(
    file="song.wav",
    media_type="audio",
)
 
print(result.uid, result.download_url)
Use cases

Who it's for

GenAI providers

SB 942 · Aug 2026

The statutory deadline has passed — deploy compliant watermarking now. Dual-track: embed at the model layer, expose a public detection API.

Distribution platforms

AB 853 · Jan 2027

Detect provenance across upstream watermarking schemes and surface authenticity in your UI. One integration for cross-provider verification.

Media and entertainment

Managed GPU

Protect licensed content and trace leaks back to source. Identity-bound provenance for every asset in your catalogue.

Regulated enterprise

On-Prem

Regulatory compliance and internal provenance, media kept in-network. C2PA manifests plus a durable watermark layer.

Government and defense

Air-Gapped

Classified content tracking in fully offline environments. Pre-purchased UID pools, no network dependency.

Startups

Cloud API

Quick integration at low volume — three lines of code and $5 of free credits to start.

Pricing

Simple, usage-based pricing

One price list across image, audio, and video. Pay only to encode — verification is always free.

Usage-based
Pay only for what you encode. No minimums, no commitments.
Free, unlimited verification
The EU Code of Practice expects providers to offer detection to deployers, authorities, researchers, and the public. Ours is open to all of them, at no cost.
Volume discounts
Annual commitments for high-volume enterprise clients.

See full pricing

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The internet will have an authentication layer

SB 942 has been enforceable since August 2 — authorities have had standing to act. Three lines of code to start, or an evaluation container for on-prem testing — from proof-of-concept to production on one platform.

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