The UK Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has banned five social media ads for AI companion, image and video-generation apps, saying they objectified and sexualised women and promoted sexually explicit content.
One ad for an AI companion app developed by Animcha Ltd used sexualised imagery of someone under 18. Two ads for Nexaipic encouraged users to upload images of a “crush” and create sexually explicit videos. Ads for KH31 DD22, Rusto AI and PictoPop were also found to depict or promote the sexualised manipulation of women's images.
The ASA said many of the ads promoted creating explicit content from real women's images without consent. Meta had already removed the ads under its own rules. The regulator said the ads were likely to cause serious or widespread offence and that such content had the potential to cause real-world harm.
The ads were identified through the ASA's AI-powered Active Ad Monitoring System. The watchdog said UK law changed during its investigations, so future cases will be assessed under both the law and its rules. Where ads appear illegal, it may notify platforms and law enforcement.
Researcher Alexios Mantzarlis said an investigation had identified 11,336 similar ads on Meta's platforms. Meta also said it had removed more than 344,000 nudifying-app ads across Facebook and Instagram between November 2025 and January 2026.
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