On April 15, 2026, the Tech Transparency Project (TTP) published a report, co-released with Bloomberg, documenting that Apple and Google continue to host and actively promote AI "nudify" apps on the App Store and Google Play despite both companies' stated policies prohibiting such content. The investigation identified 18 nudify-capable apps in the Apple App Store and 20 in Google Play — 38 total — that collectively had been downloaded 483 million times and generated approximately $122 million in revenue over their lifetimes.

Why It Matters

The TTP report reframes the nudify debate from "what do we do about AI models" to "what do we do about the gatekeepers who distribute them." Apple and Google have long insisted they comply with platform-abuse rules reactively once reports are filed, but the TTP findings show that both platforms' own search and advertising systems amplified nudify apps to users — in some cases to users as young as 12 — without waiting for abuse reports. Expect this to become exhibit A in upcoming congressional hearings on platform liability, in EU DSA enforcement against app store gatekeepers, and in state-level expansion of deepfake statutes (Oregon, Washington, South Dakota, Minnesota all have active AI-companion or deepfake statutes that could reach app-store distributors). Watch for Apple and Google to announce new "nudify-class" app review policies in the next 60 days as a pre-emptive measure.

The report's most alarming finding: 31 of the identified apps carried ratings that permitted download by minors. TTP investigators documented that App Store and Play Store search autocomplete systems actively suggested searches including "image to video ai nsfw" and that ads for nudify apps appeared as the top result in roughly 40% of tested searches. In three cases, nudify app ads appeared as the single first result in Apple search queries. Following TTP and Bloomberg's disclosure, Apple removed 15 of the 18 apps and Google suspended several Play Store listings. Neither company explained to reporters how the apps passed review or why minor-rating approvals were granted. Digital Trends, Petapixel, Engadget, 9to5Mac, Breitbart, and Bloomberg all covered the findings on April 15–16.

The report lands in the middle of an active regulatory crackdown on AI nudification globally: the EU Parliament voted to ban AI nudification apps under the AI Act on March 18, the Dutch court ordered xAI's Grok to stop generating nudes on March 26, Minnesota's HF1606 advanced in late March creating $500K civil liability for nudification-app use, and the Ohio conviction of James Strahler II on April 8 became the first TAKE IT DOWN Act prosecution. The TTP investigation directly implicates the two companies — Apple and Google — whose app stores host the distribution channels that make these tools mass-accessible. It also arrives just weeks before the TAKE IT DOWN Act's May 19, 2026 platform compliance deadline for 48-hour notice-and-takedown systems.

Sources

Update — 2026-04-21

Initial entry — story first created.