Protecting Children from Ai-Based Sexual Exploitation and Shifting Intelligence Landscapes
New updates for 2026 with the latest intelligence insights from SS8.
With the rise of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI), new dimensions of child exploitation have emerged, with greater capacity to do harm and increased enforcement complexity. Just as GenAI tools act as resource multipliers for legitimate businesses, they can also multiply the reach of those who perpetrate digital child abuse. Chatbots are being deployed to automate grooming interactions with victims, putting more children at risk. Another alarming trend is the use of GenAI to generate child sexual abuse materials (CSAM), flooding the internet with explicit deepfake pictures and media at extraordinary scale.
The scope of these crimes and the damage they impose on children are growing at an unprecedented rate. The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) reports a more than 64x increase in GenAI-related offenses from 2024 to 2025 in the US. In addition to psychological trauma, victims may be subjected to financial extortion, coerced into committing self-harm, or even targeted for human trafficking. The intensity and expansion of this vector demands robust response by law enforcement, including the use of lawful intelligence to detect and take down CSAM content, then prosecute those responsible.
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Looking ahead to 2026, forces ranging from geopolitics to technical discovery are reshaping investigative toolkits and operational landscapes for lawful intelligence. Techniques based on improved location and spatial context are filling evidence gaps created by encryption and other factors. Agencies are leaning into more aggressive cyber measures to expand access to data, which must be balanced with privacy and civil protections and brought under the larger operational umbrella of lawful intelligence. At the same time, safeguards are needed to meet growing accuracy and admissibility concerns associated with AI-driven analysis and agents while maximizing their value.
The SS8 platform translates these shifts into unified, real-world impact, bringing every signal, dataset, and analytical tool into one operational view, with intelligence that accelerates case development and ensures compliance and governance that preserves privacy and promotes evidentiary integrity.
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