For 2026, Safe Online worked with Tech Coalition members to identify three priority areas where online child sexual exploitation and abuse (OCSEA) intersects with emerging risk, informed by what we’re seeing across the ecosystem: AI companionship and intimacy, nihilistic violent extremism and sadistic online exploitation (NVE/SOE), and grooming in online gaming environments. These are areas where the evidence base is thin and the risk of harm is escalating. The result was a narrower call than in past years, asking applicants to go deep on one problem and build industry engagement into independent research itself.

Elon Musk’s free and accessible AI system, Grok, has generated an estimated three million non-consensual nude images, triggering an urgent global response. A coalition of 107 leading child-protection and humanitarian organisations has united to confront what they describe as an unacceptable threat to human dignity and child safety.

Elon Musk’s free and accessible AI system, Grok, has generated an estimated three million non-consensual nude images, triggering an urgent global response. A coalition of 107 leading child-protection and humanitarian organisations has united to confront what they describe as an unacceptable threat to human dignity and child safety.