The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children received more than 440,000 reports of AI-generated material related to child sexual abuse and exploitation in the first half of 2025 alone, a dramatic increase from 7,000 reports across the entirety of 2023 and 2024, according to research presented at the 43rd International Conference on Machine Learning. The Internet Watch Foundation observed a 400 percent increase in AI-generated CSAM reports since 2024. Thirteen percent of U.S. sexual extortion victims reported that the perpetrator used AI to create blackmail material, and 41 percent of Australian young people who experienced sexual extortion said the material used against them had been digitally manipulated. One in 17 U.S. teenagers aged 13 to 17 report having been victimised by deepfake nude images.
Traditional hash-matching tools such as PhotoDNA, which identify known CSAM by comparing file signatures against databases of previously reported material, fail against synthetic content because every AI-generated image is novel. The operational gap demands detection technology designed for generative threats. Guardii's anti-CSAM module, which includes specific capability for AI-generated and deepfake material, applies real-time monitoring to children's direct messages on Instagram, Snapchat, Discord, Roblox and other platforms, identifying both the distribution of synthetic abuse material and the grooming or sextortion dialogue that often accompanies image requests and manipulation. The platform, backed by Startmate, blocks hostile content before it reaches the child and escalates to parents, schools or law enforcement, detecting the threat at the point of contact rather than relying on retrospective hash comparison.
