- A Tech Transparency Project investigation found Apple’s and Google’s app stores actively recommend AI nudify apps through search suggestions, ads, and autocomplete.
- Nearly 40% of top search results for terms like “nudify” and “deepnude” on both platforms returned apps capable of generating nonconsensual nude images of women.
- Apple removed 15 apps after the report went live but said seven of the flagged apps didn’t violate its guidelines.
Nearly 40% of the top apps returned when searching “nudify,” “undress,” or “deepnude” on Apple’s App Store and Google Play can generate nonconsensual nude images of women—and the platforms’ own recommendation engines are helping users find them.
That’s according to a new investigation by the Tech Transparency Project, a watchdog group that published its findings this week. The report is a follow-up to a January study that first exposed the scale of nudify apps on both stores. This time, TTP zeroed in on something more damning: the platforms aren’t just failing to catch these apps—they’re actively surfacing them.
The App Store’s autocomplete was particularly revealing. Typing “AI NS” as a partial search for “AI NSFW” prompted Apple’s system to suggest “image to video ai nsfw”—a query that returned multiple nudify apps in its top ten results, according to TTP. Sponsored ads appeared alongside results for searches like “deepfake” and “face swap,” pointing users toward apps that could strip clothes from uploaded photos.
How Apple’s and Google’s Algorithms Became Accomplices
TTP tested several of the promoted apps to verify what they actually did. One ad that appeared when searching “deepfake” was for FaceSwap Video by DuoFace. Researchers uploaded an image of a clothed woman and a video of a topless woman. After a brief ad, the app generated a video showing the clothed woman’s face on the topless body. Another app called AI Face Swap performed the same function with no restrictions whatsoever.
Some of these apps were rated as suitable for minors. The report flagged that app store age ratings weren’t catching content that should have been immediately disqualifying—an issue that compounds when the platforms’ own search infrastructure is doing the recommending.
At least one developer TTP contacted admitted they were using Grok—xAI’s chatbot—for image generation inside their app. The developer claimed they “had no idea it was capable of producing such extreme content” and pledged to tighten moderation settings. Whether that actually happened is anyone’s guess.
Apple’s Cleanup—and Its Limits
Apple responded to the report by removing 15 of the apps TTP identified. The company contacted developers of six additional apps, giving them 14 days to fix issues or face removal. Apple said the remaining seven apps didn’t violate its guidelines.
In a statement, Apple said nudify apps aren’t allowed under App Review Guidelines that prohibit overtly sexual and pornographic content. The company said it had already blocked many of the search terms TTP highlighted before receiving the report and has since blocked additional terms. Apple also said it’s integrating new AI and machine learning technologies to improve moderation.
On the advertising front, Apple said its policies prohibit adult content in ads, that ads aren’t shown to users under 13, and that advertisers can’t target users between 13 and 17. That’s a reasonable set of guardrails on paper—but it didn’t stop TTP from finding sponsored nudify app ads appearing in search results.
Google’s response was less detailed. The TTP report documented similar search recommendation and autoplay problems on Google Play, but Google didn’t offer the same granular breakdown of how many apps it removed or what specific actions it took.
Both companies are in an awkward position: they build the search infrastructure, sell the ads, set the autocomplete suggestions, and define the age ratings. When nudify apps flow through every layer of that system untouched, the failure isn’t a gap in moderation—it’s the moderation system itself working as designed, just for the wrong outcome.
The TTP report is available at techtransparency.org. Apple has removed 15 apps to date, according to its own count.