WTF are content credentials?

This article is a WTF explainer, in which we break down media and marketing’s most confusing terms. More from the series →

For all you know, this sentence could be written by artificial intelligence technology. The same can increasingly be said of any image, video or even audio file uploaded online.

In an attempt to help people distinguish between AI-generated and human-generated content, Adobe and the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity have proposed a system for disclosing how a piece of content was created.

Called content credentials, the system would embed information, such as who created a piece of content and whether it was made using generative AI tools, in the content’s metadata and append a watermark indicating such information was attached. Beyond disclosing AI’s involvement, the content credential system can also be used to credit artists for their work and verify its authenticity, as covered in the video skit below.

More in Media

A timeline of the major deals between publishers and AI tech companies in 2025

Here’s a list of all the major deals signed between publishers and AI tech companies in 2025.

No playbook, just pressure: Publishers eye the rise of agentic browsers

For the bulk of publishers, Google is, as ever, the one to watch. It’s already got agentic features within its Chrome browser, but that’s the tip of the iceberg, some say.

The biggest SEO lessons in 2025 for publishers

KPIs are changing, more AI search data is becoming available, and publishers are looking beyond search to grow their audiences and revenue.