Seeing Clearly in an AI World: Generative Watermarking and Digital Trust
Artificial intelligence is now a seamless part of daily life, but as AI-generated content becomes more common, trust and authenticity are increasingly important. Generative watermarking, highlighted by the World Economic Forum as a Top 10 Emerging Technology of 2025, offers a solution by embedding invisible signatures in AI content.
“ In an era of deepfakes and synthetic media, this technology is a welcome addition. It adds invisible tags to AI-generated content, which makes it easier to identify what’s real and what isn’t, and as a result will help fight misinformation and improve trust online."(World Economic Forum, 2025).
"Meyerson describes how the process can work with images. "At the level of pixels, which human eyes can't resolve, but computers can ... you write a signature into the image that says 'Hi, I'm from AI'." (World Economic Forum, 2025).
"A number of leading tech companies are increasingly integrating watermarking. However, the tech faces challenges, including uneven adoption and users attempting to remove or forge watermarks. Ethical concerns also abound, such as falsely labelling real content as AI-generated.” (World Economic Forum, 2025).
From a design perspective, this technology is inspiring. It demonstrates how systems can protect users while remaining intuitive and usable. Designers can take cues from watermarking by embedding trust and transparency into every digital touchpoint, ensuring users feel confident in what they see, interact with, and act upon.
In banking, where customers depend on secure, accurate information, these principles are also critical. Watermarking can help verify AI-generated recommendations, communications, and documents, to safeguard assets and reinforcing confidence.
For my capstone, this highlights a key lesson: design is not just about aesthetics or functionality, it’s about creating systems that people can rely on. By integrating trust, clarity, and ethical practices into experiences, designers can shape financial systems that are both innovative and dependable.
References.
Arteum.ro. (2018). Person Showing Green and Black Eyelid Closeup Photography [Photography]. Unsplashed. https://unsplash.com/photos/person-showing-green-and-black-eyelid-closeup-photography-7H41oiADqqg
World Economic Forum. (2025, June 24). These are the top 10 emerging technologies of 2025. World Economic Forum. https://www.weforum.org/stories/2025/06/top-10-emerging-technologies-of-2025/
This work draws on original material from Huntington Bank’s “Rethinking Financial Futures” brief (~30%), incorporates the author’s own research design, analysis, and writing (~50%), and was assisted by AI (ChatGPT, GPT-5-mini) for content synthesis, editing, and condensation of text (~20%). All interpretations, conclusions, and arguments remain the responsibility of the author.
