FRIDAY, Nov. 6, 2026 (HealthDay News) — “It was a picture of me half naked on a bed with a man lying beside me,” one young U.K. woman told investigators.
“It was a video of me in a sexual encounter with my best friend’s disabled wife,” a middle-aged U.K. man said.
“A boy from a college course made and circulated a deepfake of myself giving him oral sex,” a young woman from the U.S. reported.
These people are among a growing number of victims who’ve had their likenesses used in sexually charged AI-generated “deepfake” images, researchers say.
About 1 in 15 adults in the United States, United Kingdom and Australia (7%) have experienced at least one form of AI-generated image-based abuse since turning 18, researchers reported recently in the International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction.
Of these adults, nearly 9 in 10 (87%) said the deepfake images had cost them something in their lives, affecting their health, well-being, relationships, career or finances.
“We now have evidence of how widely AI-generated image-based abuse is affecting people across the community, not just celebrities and public figures,” said lead researcher Nicola Henry, a professor of global and language studies with RMIT University in Australia.
“The true scale may be even greater because some people may never know that AI-generated images of them have been created or shared,” Henry said in a news release.
For the new study, researchers surveyed more than 7,200 adults from the three English-speaking nations. Participants were asked if someone had created a deepfake of them, how they’d immediately responded to the AI-generated image, and what lasting effects the image had on their lives.
More than 4% of people said someone had created AI-generated intimate images of them, and about 4% said someone had shared such images without their consent. Just under 4% said someone had threatened to share deepfakes of them.
One young U.S. woman told researchers a friend had forwarded a deepfake video to her and had “assumed it was me before approaching me and finding out that it wasn’t.”
Added another young American woman: “A lot of people on the internet aren’t aware of how well done AI is. I’ve seen many, many things online that are generative AI, and people are thinking it’s 100% real.”
Men, young adults under 35, people from racial and ethnic minorities, and people with disabilities reported higher rates of abuse linked to AI-generated images, researchers said.
For example, men had twice the rate of deepfake abuse, the study found. More than 10% of men said they’d had images created using their likeness, compared with fewer than 4% of women.
However, women reported more negative reactions and impacts. The images made them fear for their safety and took a toll on their mental and physical health, the study found.
About 88% of women responded negatively to deepfakes of themselves, versus 71% of men, the study found.
Women were more likely to feel depressed (43% versus 26%); afraid for their safety (42% versus 18%); or sad (33% versus 11%). By comparison, men were more likely to say they were “OK with it” (11% versus 1%) or think it was funny (12% versus 4%).
“Someone made fake pics of me and tried to blackmail me and I just laughed,” one middle-aged American man told researchers.
A little more than half of people (56%) said the person who created their deepfake was someone they knew only online, while about 3 in 10 (30%) said they had met or interacted “in person” with the culprit. The remaining 14% said they didn’t know anything about the perpetrator.
Victims most commonly responded by blocking the perpetrator on the platform involved (69%); reporting the person to the platform (57%); gathering evidence (55%); confronting the perpetrator online (55%); contacting the website for takedown of the content (53%); or seeking informal support from friends and family (52%).
About half (51%) deleted their social media account completely or changed their privacy settings, researchers said.
These results show that technology companies need to do more to prevent AI-generated deepfakes, rather than waiting for victims to report abuse, Henry said.
“Regulation and new laws are not enough. We also need better education, accessible support for victim-survivors and greater responsibility on technology companies and developers to build safety into AI tools and apps from the outset,” Henry said. “We’ve worked with Google researchers for a long time to better understand this broader issue and identify where industry-wide prevention efforts are most needed.”
A Google employee who participated in the new study agreed that it provided important new information about deepfake abuse.
“Understanding who is experiencing AI-generated image-based abuse, how it occurs and the impacts it has on people is essential if we are going to design more effective prevention and responses,” co-author Rebecca Umbach, a staff user experience researcher at Google, said in a news release.
“Research that brings together academic and technology-sector expertise can help identify where interventions are most needed and how technology itself can be part of preventing harm,” Umbach said.
The new study was funded by Google.
More information
The University of Texas-San Antonio has more on how deepfakes are shaping perceptions.
SOURCES: RMIT University, news release, Nov. 3, 2026; International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction, Sept. 8, 2026
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