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AI is now part of how Australian children experience online sexual harm. New research by Adelaide University shows how far it has already reached.
New research from Adelaide University, proudly supported by ICMEC Australia, offers the first national picture of the role artificial intelligence plays in the online sexual victimisation of Australian children. The findings are clear: AI is no longer a risk on the horizon. It is already shaping how young people are harmed, and how they reach out for help.
"This research confirms what frontline services and law enforcement have been warning about. AI is now shaping how children are harmed, and how they reach for help. The reforms of the past year matter, but the response has to move as fast as the technology. That means industry, government and services working together, not in isolation." Colm Gannon, Chief Executive Officer, ICMEC Australia.
Drawing on a nationally representative survey of 1,894 young Australians aged 16 to 18, the study is the first to measure AI's involvement in this form of harm at a population level. It found that AI now features in more than one in four cases of image-based child sexual abuse, that young people are increasingly turning to AI rather than to trusted adults or services when seeking help, and that these experiences extend across social networks and beyond those traditionally considered most at risk.
These findings mark a turning point in how we understand online harm, and they point to a clear need for coordinated action across industry, government, and the services children turn to. Keeping pace with this technology, and protecting the children affected by it, is something no organisation can do alone.
Thank you to Associate Professor Timothy Cubitt, Dr Katie Logos, Professor Russell Brewer of Adelaide University, and Distinguished Professor Ben Mathews of Queensland University of Technology for conducting this important research.
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