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  • Finance brokers
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The stories

OpenAI adds an invisible watermark to ChatGPT text in the EU

Announced 5 October

OpenAI said on 5 October that over the coming weeks it will add an invisible watermark (a hidden statistical pattern in the model's word choices that a detector can spot but a reader cannot) to ChatGPT and Codex text for users on all plans in the European Union.

The detector is not public. Access is limited to approved researchers and expert organisations such as regulators and media.

Editing weakens it: in OpenAI's own test, swapping 10% of words for synonyms cut detection from about 92% to 66%, and swapping 25% cut it to 17%. Short passages are harder to detect.

OpenAI is explicit that a watermark does not identify the user, does not prove who owns the text, and does not say whether the text is accurate. The absence of a watermark does not prove a human wrote it.

Google will delete a shared calendar when its creator's account is deleted

Rolling out from 5 October

From 5 October, Google Workspace secondary calendars (any calendar a person creates beyond their own, such as "Treatment Room 2", "Van 1 jobs", "Court dates" or "Holiday rota") follow the lifecycle of the person who created them. Delete that person's account and the calendar is deleted. Suspend the account and the calendar is suspended.

Google says this matches how primary calendars already behave and is meant to make sure every calendar has a valid owner. It applies to all Workspace customers and Workspace Individual subscribers. Rollout may take longer than 15 days to reach every account.

Admins can transfer a calendar to a new owner in the admin console before deleting or suspending a user. Users can transfer their own calendars in Calendar settings.

Google Docs now opens Markdown files without converting them

Rolling out from 5 October

Markdown (.md) is the plain-text format most AI assistants use when they hand back a file: a report, a meeting summary, a checklist. Until now, opening one in Google Docs meant converting it, which Google admits "often altered formatting, stripped comments, and fragmented files".

From 5 October, over up to 15 days, you can open, edit, comment on and share a Markdown file in Docs as it is, and Drive shows a formatted preview. No admin setting, no user setting. Available to all Workspace customers and personal Google accounts.

Clear takeaways

  • AI-written text is becoming identifiable. Not to the public yet, but to regulators, media and researchers, and the list of who can check will grow.
  • The useful response is not to hide AI use but to edit properly and be ready to answer the question when a client, tender or court asks it.
  • Your shared calendars and documents are owned by people, not by the business, until someone makes them so. Offboarding is where that gap costs you.

Do this now

  1. Write one line into your AI policy, or start one: "Every AI draft that goes to a client, a court or a tender is edited by the named person who sends it, and we answer honestly if asked whether AI was used." Give it to new starters.
  2. Pick the last client document your team produced with AI help and read it against the draft. If fewer than a sentence in four changed, it was not edited. That is the standard to set, for quality as much as for provenance.
  3. In Google Calendar, open Settings and look at "Settings for my calendars". Every calendar listed below your own name is a secondary calendar you own. Ask each person in the firm to send you their list. Ten minutes for the whole team.
  4. For any calendar the business depends on (rooms, vans, court dates, rota), transfer ownership to a role account such as admin@ or to the owner, in Google Admin or via whoever runs your Workspace.
  5. Add one line to your leaver checklist: "Transfer the leaver's secondary calendars and shared Drive files before suspending or deleting the account."

Sources