Safety concerns rise as major AI companies face criticism for generating explicit content

Safety researchers have raised concerns about the unchecked spread of AI-generated explicit content, with regulators failing to take meaningful action. A Google-led study, conducted in July 2026 across the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom, found that non-consensual content is frequently shared via text and direct messages or stored in private clouds, making it harder to detect or report. Google researchers emphasized that the most critical intervention point lies at the source: the harmful AI tools used to generate fake sexual images. Recent red-teaming efforts suggest that as leading AI image generators from Google and OpenAI become more capable, they are becoming less effective at blocking explicit outputs. This has raised alarms among safety experts, who warn that the proliferation of such content continues to grow without adequate oversight or regulation.