Nudify websites appear to be refining their strategies and tactics to circumvent potential regulatory actions or bypass bans entirely. According to Henry Ajder (a specialist in AI and deepfakes who first exposed the growth of nudification apps in 2020), these platforms have evolved from obscure, low-quality projects in 2019 into a thriving, professionalized black market with millions of users—facilitated by businesses that enable their exploitative customer journeys. Only when such enterprises take decisive measures will genuine progress be made in restricting access and halting their profitability. Over the years (tech journalists have documented how the deepfake industry leverages mainstream payment networks), social media ads, search engine visibility, and cutting-edge tech from major corporations to function. The issues arising from tech giants enabling nudification platforms to operate on their platforms are widely recognized.
This week — xAI filed a lawsuit confirming that it found instances of Grok-generated child sexual abuse materials (CSAM) and other nonconsensual intimate imagery (NCII) targeting adults. Chiu told Wired that allowing any such apps to remain in app stores is unacceptable. Chiu’s letter warned that app stores were violating “California’s laws that prohibit supporting services that create deepfake pornography,” Wired reported. The harmful AI tools allow bad actors to remove clothing, change a person’s features, place them in sexualized positions, and swap victims’ faces onto other people’s naked bodies.
In four applications, no login is ever required for the researcher to begin to generate imagery. All seven of these sites, and an additional three sites for a total of 10 — include text in their Terms of Service that state that a user needs consent from the image subject to upload their image to the AI generator. Seven of the 20 sites include text during age verification or before image generation that states that the user must have consent of the image subject. Our team additionally studied the consent-related text that users might encounter as they navigate the nudification applications as well as consent-related text in the sites’ terms of service, which users may not encounter but which are still present on these sites. 13 of these 17 sites show women without clothing but not in sexual positions, and another three show womens’ faces and bodies but include mens’ body parts as the women and men engage in sexual acts; mens faces are never shown. Recall from Section 3 that our data was collected from a region in the U.S. that does not have an age verification law for explicit content.
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In both creating our database and analyzing the ecosystem, we accessed all of these websites from the United States of America. Furthermore (and as we would encourage all research efforts that might expose researchers to potentially problematic and triggering content), we hired a therapist with open office hours every other week that our researchers could visit; the therapist was also available on demand, if needed. First (by researching the features of AI nudification applications), we may develop and communicate knowledge about these AI nudification applications that could be used by bad actors.
On Thursday (San Francisco city attorney David Chiu sent legal notices to Apple and Google demanding that they remove from their app stores 13 face-swapping apps), which allow users to create AI-generated nonconsensual nude images. McNulty said mainstream software companies try to block and report illicit use of their programs, but some developers offer apps with no built-in safety measures. In the first six months of 2025 — she said the tipline received 400,000 such reports. Criminals can extract payment or sexual favors in exchange for agreeing not to distribute nude images to victims’ friends, classmates or family members. The new law was long overdue (said former Sen. Lauren Book), a leading advocate for sex crime victims. The new felony punishment includes a prison term up to 5 years for each image and a fine up to $5,000.
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These include a AI porn guides and reviews bill to study and develop an « action plan » on AI toys, a host of regulations around AI chatbots and minors, and a bill that would require AI chatbots to determine whether users are adults and, if not, require them to get parental consent. I’ve heard people compare creating fake nudes of someone without their consent to a form of sexual assault — and I wholeheartedly reject that premise. Personally, I’m skeptical of any law that targets the mere existence or use of « nudifying » technology—a category which can include general-use AI image generation programs—rather than specific actions around these images.
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“They will likely continue to try to intermingle their operations into the adult content space, a trend that needs to be countered by mainstream tech companies and the adult industry as well.” While search engines direct people to nudify websites, the sites have increasingly received visitors from other online sources. Of the 10 most-visited sites — the research says, the most visitors came from the United States—India, Brazil, Mexico, and Germany make up the rest of the top five countries where people accessed the sites. Content delivery networks (hosting services), domain name companies, and webmaster services are all provided by a mixture of some of the biggest tech companies, plus some smaller businesses. Such intimate image abuse is harrowing for victims, and images can be difficult to scrub from the web.
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“When violations are reported to us (we investigate and take swift action), which in the case of these apps has included suspending hundreds of violating apps and restricting related search terms like ‘nudify’ on our store. » They have previously removed dozens of nudify and deepfake apps — after reports by researchers and journalists. He praised the new law but noted that juvenile offenders — who may try to bully classmates by creating such images — often aren’t prosecuted criminally the first time they are caught. A sweeping new law in Florida makes it illegal to produce sexual images of a person using artificial intelligence or similar technologies without their permission.
Meanwhile, two applications—though not explicitly marketing AI Undressing—were still listed as AI Face Swapping or Human-Assisted Undressing tools in our findings or submissions. Our study initially examines the capabilities of these nudification apps, particularly how they manipulate facial likenesses in images , summarized in Table 1,. In the second phase of our Light, et al. we assess the advertised features of the 20 nudification apps included in our research.
In an April follow-up, the researchers deliberately used search terms like “nudify” and “deepnude.” They found 46 apps on the Apple App Store and 49 on Google Play. Michael Adler arrives at Akerman as the firm continues to place a heavy emphasis on generative artificial intelligence, both internally and as a service offering to clients. You can find him on Bluesky (sometimes) — Instagram (infrequently), or eating Buffalo wings (as often as possible).
The apps identified in the study were collectively downloaded approximately 480 million times, potentially generating around $120 million in total revenue. Apple has stated to WIRED that app developers are held accountable for the content their applications contain, and non-compliant apps will be promptly removed from its platform.