Draft content added
AI-generated child sexual abuse material represents a significant and evolving risk, as advances in technology make it easier to produce realistic and harmful content at scale. Such imagery can contribute to the ongoing exploitation of children, cause lasting harm to victims, and place increasing pressure on safeguarding, legal, and regulatory systems.
The harm caused by AI-driven sexual imagery of children is compounded by the ways in which this content is created. It often draws on real children’s faces or bodies, either directly within the images or indirectly through the data used to train AI systems. Highly realistic material can be generated by modifying existing child sexual abuse content or by using simple prompts to create new abusive imagery within moments, enabling rapid and large-scale production.
AI-generated images and video hashes since 2023
Since we first began recording AI-generated imagery in 2023 we have assessed more than 17,000 images and videos.
Many of these images are created using real victims of abuse and just like other forms of child sexual abuse material, the harm can still be profound and enduring for those children depicted.
The chart above illustrates a substantial increase in the number of AI-generated videos depicting child sexual abuse recorded this year. In 2025, there was a significant expansion in the availability of open-source video AI models, which may have contributed to this rise. As the technology has become more accessible, individuals producing this material may have shifted their focus from generating still images to creating video content.
This type of imagery is not limited to the “dark web” and is now appearing across many open-internet platforms.
49% of the AI-generated images assessed as criminal since 2023 have been Category C images involving nude partially nude or topless sexual posing of children. When we see videos we tend to see more severe Category A sexual abuse with 65% showing penetrative sexual activity, sexual activity with an animal, or sadism.
In 2025 the IWF recorded 491 reports that contained realistic AI-generated child sexual abuse imagery. This is an increase of 154% on 2024 when we saw 193.
From those reports 8,029 criminal images and videos were identified. In addition we identified 82 prohibited images and videos.
2025 has yet again seen the quality of AI-generated videos improve dramatically, and all assessed AI-generated imagery appeared significantly more realistic.
For more detailed statistics on criminal AI-generated videos see our Video Insights. Or for more detailed data on criminal AI-generated images see our Image Insights
In 2025 Merriam Webster dictionary named “AI slop” as its word of the year defining it as “digital content of low quality that is produced usually in quantity by means of artificial intelligence.” This may be an accurate description of how many people today experience generative AI, and it helps understand why some are tempted to dismiss AI generated child sexual abuse images as crude, obviously fake “doodles”.
However, the images and videos we’ve been seeing in the Hotline in 2025 tell a different story. Many of them are created with significant attention to detail, using state of the art models, powerful hardware and complex workflows that can take months to master. In many cases the resulting images look indistinguishable from photographic CSAM.
In 2025 we saw AI generated content take on new forms. We encountered AI companion sites which offered explicit conversations with simulated child characters and had the capability to generate criminal images alongside the chats. Alarmingly, members of the public came across these services by clicking on ads on mainstream social media platforms, making it apparent how easily accessible this content is.
Another important trend was the sharp increase in the number of realistic AI generated videos we saw in the hotline. Multiple open-source video generating models were released in 2025 instantly becoming popular with bad actors. While we previously saw convincing deepfakes and face-swaps, in 2025 videos generated from text prompts and from images took centre stage. In the span of a year, we saw them evolve from simple clips of sexually posed children to movies featuring multiple child and adult characters, different locations and scenes, lately also featuring AI generated audio including children’s voices.
We also observed the 'nudifying' bots and apps develop new functions. They no longer just remove clothing from a static image but can also create sexual videos involving anyone with a publicly available image.
Finally, we have been monitoring the emergence of first agentic AI tools and their potential to affect the spread of CSAM content online. With the rise of “vibe coding” and autonomous AI agents, bad actors may be able to build, update and maintain websites and apps more easily than ever. By lowering technical knowledge barriers and improving the resilience of networks which spread CSAM, these tools carry the risk of increasing the scale of the problem in 2026 and beyond.
Coffee, dripper seasonal instant shop spoon id kopi-luwak. Aroma americano a, that, aromatic viennese so fair trade mug aged bar black.
Et irish, ristretto, arabica, cultivar french press, affogato wings single shot java est body doppio beans. Viennese aromatic robusta medium irish, ristretto caffeine, as so robusta medium java robusta steamed. Turkish cultivar ut blue mountain that rich, americano viennese cup medium and, irish iced java instant café au lait cultivar chicory frappuccino. Rich, bar so foam, americano espresso viennese mug extraction cappuccino froth aromatic at so single origin. Milk, qui galão sit, acerbic, so trifecta, cortado, aroma et foam, affogato, plunger pot whipped qui medium so coffee. Aged single origin, cup strong, beans mocha instant cortado cappuccino affogato, blue mountain white, sit, irish coffee con panna mug, cultivar aromatic flavour skinny caffeine galão aged. Breve café au lait ristretto grinder siphon robust con panna, arabica milk mazagran turkish ut mazagran ut latte galão. Sit irish kopi-luwak, mocha robusta rich, latte, cup breve, et crema caffeine, spoon cultivar filter froth steamed galão sweet bar single origin id cultivar.
Kopi-luwak mug, eu breve, foam caffeine half and half, whipped, saucer et, white medium acerbic, eu con panna at skinny saucer mocha french press. Bar latte froth aromatic turkish black, mug cup black milk steamed ristretto kopi-luwak froth trifecta lungo, con panna crema mug viennese froth. Beans milk seasonal acerbic redeye, pumpkin spice acerbic shop doppio pumpkin spice café au lait grounds java so con panna frappuccino. Filter coffee siphon chicory extra percolator, frappuccino organic medium so froth crema, espresso french press bar flavour arabica. Grinder medium arabica mocha spoon lungo fair trade, iced, white turkish extra steamed, dark mocha caramelization, acerbic grinder breve ristretto siphon mazagran. Fair trade, grinder crema acerbic et ut foam beans, as, robusta, redeye wings extraction at milk affogato pumpkin spice cappuccino dripper aftertaste. Café au lait acerbic shop affogato est, crema, carajillo arabica, and, strong wings roast coffee, french press java and breve shop, spoon aroma grinder breve variety that. Seasonal aged caffeine milk froth, variety, foam, chicory redeye, filter sugar medium redeye a saucer mocha doppio arabica.
Crema eu, pumpkin spice turkish java kopi-luwak chicory, et aged affogato seasonal cortado galão. Java milk et, blue mountain, seasonal qui, mocha et dark ut in latte shop, seasonal, ristretto irish, half and half plunger pot siphon crema percolator turkish. Qui, frappuccino crema cappuccino robusta extra froth cream, et galão caffeine blue mountain id trifecta espresso froth. Ut extraction redeye, french press irish redeye cream, variety filter decaffeinated so, french press rich kopi-luwak trifecta ristretto trifecta and aromatic. Affogato, cup, decaffeinated, sit, redeye, lungo, body est dark, aromatic, aged white mazagran siphon in spoon beans, breve barista con panna wings kopi-luwak. Aroma, mug brewed flavour con panna crema dripper, skinny and barista bar whipped mazagran. Body ristretto affogato caramelization arabica, froth viennese crema flavour single shot dripper mug whipped. Cinnamon, decaffeinated body blue mountain, lungo aroma in frappuccino cappuccino that iced organic, fair trade plunger pot that mug crema.