Photography by Caroline Gutman

When we launched the Content Authenticity Initiative in 2019, we couldn’t have predicted just how urgent and global the conversation around the topic would become. Last week, the 2025 Content Authenticity Summit at Cornell Tech showed us how far we’ve come — and just how ready we are to move from invention and standardization to adoption. I, for one, also learned a lot about the opportunities and challenges ahead. They are both exciting and challenging, and could not be navigated without an engaged, active community. More than anything, the summit last week was about reminding ourselves that this community, with you in it, can move mountains.

In close collaboration with the C2PA and IPTC, we brought together 220 people on June 4^th, on a beautiful breezy summer day on Roosevelt Island, home to the stunning Cornell Tech campus.  

This year’s summit felt different from the prior one, held at Stanford University in 2023. This wasn’t just about standards, specs, and protocols — it was about practical application. We saw newsrooms, filmmakers, open-source developers, social platforms, hardware manufacturers, and AI researchers discussing real implementations, real user experiences, and real challenges. This wasn’t about a hypothetical need targeting a distant future. It was all about now. 

The most powerful theme throughout the summit was the transition from building the foundations of authenticity to embedding them in the tools, platforms, and experiences people use every day. The C2PA’s Content Credentials, once just a promising standard, are now being actively integrated into cameras, content editors, newsrooms, and generative AI tools. Speakers highlighted how policy, product, and provenance are converging. 

My colleague Santiago Lyon, Head of Advocacy and Education for the CAI, whose entire career has focused on authentic storytelling both behind the camera and as a leader in journalism, welcomed participants with an assessment of the work behind us and everything that the future holds. Adoption means collaboration and embracing viewpoints from across today’s vast digital ecosystem. Technical standards and open-source tools are the foundation upon which collaboration is anchored. 

A series of insightful lightning talks followed. Short infusions from all corners of the world of Content Authenticity. 

The final stage talk of the day was delivered by Hany Farid, world-renowned pioneer of digital forensics, UC Berkeley Professor, and founder of GetReal Security. In a whirlwind 30-minute tour of AI-powered deception that is confronting society, Hany spoke about practical countermeasures, unsolved problems, and areas like provenance that hold essential hope for shared, objective understanding of the world. All of this was laced with his trademark sarcasm and wit, perfectly delivered to an audience tired from the day yet eager for more. 

These stage talks bookended an afternoon of eight parallel breakout sessions moderated by Content Authenticity leaders in their fields, encouraging open conversation. Feedback from the organizing team was heard loud and clear—everyone is excited for even more open exchange and collaborative time.  

These afternoon breakout conversations were electric. Whether it was a filmmaker using Content Credentials to protect their creative voice in the age of generative AI, or a major camera manufacturer supporting native provenance support in their devices, the signal was clear: the ecosystem is coalescing. Content Credentials are becoming embedded, not just bolted on.  

All of this requires a set of rules and conventions for trust, and I was pleased to co-lead the breakout session on the C2PA Conformance Program, with Conformance Task force co-chair Sherif Hanna of Google and Scott Perry, head of the Digital Governance Institute. This was an important conversation as we’re working to launch the Conformance Program, which will require C2PA implementations to demonstrate proper implementation before being considered part of the trusted Content Credentials ecosystem. Think of this as a set of practices akin to how Bluetooth and WiFi compliance is assured for devices we use every day. The program aims to ensure safety, interoperability, and trustworthy provenance capture. 

A recurring topic was the "who" and "how" of provenance. Who is responsible for attaching it? How does it travel from creation to consumption? In the IPTC-led news ecosystem breakout, we heard from the IPTC members about workflows that embed credentials at the moment of capture and preserve them through editing and publication. We saw how startups and open-source developers are integrating provenance into their infrastructure and user experiences. And the complexities of newsroom adoption were addressed with thoughtful insight and optimism. 

There were, of course, big questions — about misinformation, generative AI, legal frameworks, cross-border interoperability, and user trust. But what stood out most was the sense of collaboration. Engineers sat down with policy experts. Artists explored metadata with data scientists and user experience designers. Students, leading publishers, and startup founders shared the floor with heads of product and policy. 

This is how real change happens: when values like transparency, attribution, and integrity move beyond white papers, voluminous specifications, and source code, and into the DNA of tools, platforms, and common practices. 

To everyone who joined us at Cornell Tech — thank you. Your presence and ideas are building the momentum we all need and you are having real impact. And to those watching from afar: the time to join the movement is now. We plan to do something even bigger and better next time to accommodate more viewpoints and spark event deeper conversations with one another. In the meantime, keep learning, experimenting and deploying, together! 

Let’s keep pushing toward a future where we can know more about the content we see online — verifiably where it came from and what it is. Let’s make authenticity count, in news, creative, and beyond.