AI App Ads Banned by UK Watchdog

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has banned five social media adverts for AI apps that objectified and sexualised women.

The ads, which were uploaded to Meta platforms, used images of girls under 18 in a sexual way and promoted the creation of sexually explicit content from people's images without their consent.

The ASA said these ads had the potential 'to cause real-world harm' and that they were a clear example of why 'serious or widespread offence' is likely to be caused by such content.

The watchdog also found that many of the ads it banned had promoted the creation of sexually explicit content using real women's images without their consent, including an ad for an AI portrait generation tool called Nexaipic which encouraged users to 'upload your crush and let AI create what you imagine' with sexually explicit videos.

The ASA said its rulings were part of a wider 'zero-tolerance approach' to such adverts and that Meta had already removed the offending ads prior to the ASA's action.

Researcher Alexios Mantzarlis reported in early September that an investigation found 11,336 ads on Meta's platforms claiming they could be used to turn images of clothed people into sexually explicit videos. Most of these ads were removed automatically by Meta, however Mantzarlis said many ads it identified had promoted domains or publishers that his site, Indicator, had previously flagged to the tech giant.

Meta declined to comment, but pointed to action it has already taken to tackle nudification apps, external, including using new tech to detect ads and taking legal action. The firm has also previously revealed, external, that between November 2025 and January 2026, it removed over 344,000 ads for nudifying apps across Facebook and Instagram.

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