Internet Watch Foundation reports 40 percent surge in AI-generated CSAM in first half of 2026

The Internet Watch Foundation reported that analysts examined 6,310 AI-generated child sexual abuse images in the first half of 2026, representing a 40 percent increase over the entire year of 2025, when just over 4,500 such images were recorded. The UK-based IWF, which monitors abuse material globally, noted that the majority of images depicted girls aged between seven and thirteen years old. IWF head of policy Hannah Swirsky stated it is incumbent on tech companies to build tools which cannot be abused in this way, backing calls from parliamentarians for new statutory regulation on AI. The report updates earlier IWF findings documenting increases in volume, realism and severity of AI-generated abuse imagery and video, including the use of easier-to-use tools lowering technical barriers and potentially re-victimizing real children whose images are used to train or generate content.

Surging volumes of synthetic abuse material strain the investigative resources law enforcement allocates to identifying and rescuing living victims. Real-time conversation analysis that identifies escalation, coercion and acute distress enables triage, distinguishing between an offender cultivating a new target, an ongoing exploitation with a real child at immediate risk, and synthetic material circulating among collectors. Guardii, a world-leading AI safety platform, detects harmful patterns in direct-message conversations across Instagram, Snapchat, Discord, Roblox and other platforms, reporting the shape and seriousness of a conversation rather than its contents, with detection modules for grooming, sextortion, CSAM including AI-generated and deepfake imagery, age-inappropriate contact, cyberbullying, harassment of athletes and women, and self-harm or suicide-risk signals, enabling rapid escalation to the right authority in an emergency.