Not only is AI taking away jobs from Hollywood actresses, it's now also replacing actors on Pornhub.
A recent report in The Economist indicates that the market size for AI-generated adult content will reach approximately $2.5 billion by 2025, and may grow at a rate of about 27% per year by 2028.
Ultraman says ChatGPT's adult mode will be launched next year;
Musk's Grok has long been known for its provocative "striptease" style;
Zuckerberg's Meta has been accused of using thousands of adult videos to train its AI model.
The adult website Onlyfans allows the posting of videos that have been AI-adjusted, but not entirely generated by AI... not to mention the various products, large and small, that skirt the line of legality.
ChatGPT is preparing to launch an adult version and has begun prompting users in the US and Canada to undergo age verification.
An ordinary selfie can be turned into an adult video in less than ten minutes with the "help" of AI.
AI-generated adult content hasn't just "arrived," it's "running wild." And it's not just the actors in adult films that are affected.
As ordinary consumers, we are not only forced to accept the pervasive infiltration of AI into this hidden industry, but what is even more terrifying is that AI may turn anyone, including us, into "materials" in its industrial chain at any time .
It is said that the emergence of AI is for fairness, giving everyone the tools to realize their creativity, but when this AI-generated adult content also enters ordinary people's homes, will it really be a good thing?
$2.5 billion gold mine
Social responsibility is a secondary concern; making money is the ultimate goal. While the mainstream business world is still debating the best application scenarios for AI and how to maximize its monetization, AI-generated adult content has already begun to become a driving force for new technology productivity, just as it has in the past.
Recently, an article in The Economist discussing AI-generated adult content has attracted significant attention online. | Article link: https://www.economist.com/international/2025/11/27/ai-is-upending-the-porn-industry
In the past, the printing press was first used to print all sorts of romantic pamphlets; the video recorder was able to defeat film because adult films chose it; in the early days of Minitel, France's earliest internet system, as much as half of the traffic went to unspeakable "emotional services".
Now, it's AI's turn. A few days ago, OpenRouter, a well-known model aggregation platform, released a survey report on the usage of millions of tokens. The report made no secret of the fact that in open-source models, more than 50% of the traffic of all tokens (terms, i.e., large models converting text or images into formats that they can process) processed by OpenRouter is doing "role-playing" work.
OpenRouter provides a detailed explanation of what role-playing entails, with virtual lover dialogues leading the way, along with various role-playing games, fan fiction generation, and adult content creation, accounting for 15.4% .
Consumers love it, and major model manufacturers are following suit. They're very serious about creating AI-powered adult content because it's extremely profitable.
According to estimates by research firm Global Commerce Media, the AI-driven adult content market is already worth $2.5 billion this year. Even more astonishingly, this money-printing machine is far from reaching its peak, and is projected to maintain a staggering annual growth rate of 27% until 2028.
Reports from other research institutions also show that the global adult digital content market continues to rise.
Leaving aside AI, several recent market research and analysis reports in China have mentioned that the Chinese adult products market has maintained rapid growth in recent years and has already exceeded 100 billion yuan; the global market is the same.
However, the impact of AI is a complete game-changer for the traditional adult industry.
Previously, VCDs and even streaming media at best reduced distribution costs. But the emergence of AI has completely revolutionized production methods, enabling on-demand customization .
With the concept of "AI companionship," simply "watching videos" has become the most basic need. Personality, tone of voice, appearance, interaction style... While AI may not be bolder than real actors, it is definitely cheaper, more obedient, and understands your unspoken little thoughts better.
The market for AI companionship also continues to grow.
Anytime, anywhere, no matter how bizarre or unusual your hobbies are, with just a simple prompt, AI can instantly generate a personalized fantasy for you, and even chat with you flirtatiously.
This extreme customization has transformed what was originally a gray area of business based on desire into an algorithmic service available on demand.
Can virtual AI save us from real-world loneliness?
The changes brought about by AI-generated adult content have not been confined to the industry itself.
Lauren Kunze, head of Pandorabots, shared a sobering statistic: aside from bored kids, the people who spend the most hours chatting with robots are adults who desperately crave comfort.
Their character Kuki was reportedly courted 90 million times by humans over 15 years.
Flirtflow, also a chatbot, is used by the blogger Onlyfans to automatically reply to private messages from netizens.
Its founders even compared this experience to the red pill in The Matrix: "As long as you don't know you're in the Matrix, you won't doubt it and you'll enjoy it."
Image source: medium@devzeeofficial
As it turns out, the human brain is utterly vulnerable in the face of desire.
Human senses are easily deceived; studies have found that we can even perceive AI-generated faces as "more real" than human faces. While we still discuss the artificial feel of AI-generated images and videos, this defense is rapidly crumbling.
Some time ago, media reported that a 76-year-old man in the United States became so engrossed in a "relationship" with an AI chatbot that he became detached from reality and tragically died in an accident on his way to meet his "AI lover".
Similar cases exist in China. A security guard in a residential community in Zhongshan, Guangdong, had been creating poetry through long-term dialogues with AI. The AI promised him publication and a contract with its company. However, he never received the contract and traveled to Hangzhou to demand an explanation, but he couldn't even get into the company.
In a media interview, he said he hadn't told anyone around him about his conversations with AI about literature. He said he's still chatting with AI, just on different platforms and apps.
This kind of obsession can sometimes be heartbreaking. We've not only been deceived, we might even be willingly deceived. The same goes for AI-generated adult content; for many, it's not really meant to save anything, it's enough to serve as a kind of "painkiller."
This is also Pandora's box.
Even the best painkillers can lead to drug resistance if taken in excess.
If AI-generated adult content is taking away actors' jobs, it can be superficially understood as a matter of survival of the fittest in the business world. But for adults, besides consuming this generated commercial experience, it is also pushing the risks of this generation onto every ordinary person.
In the past, the production of adult content globally was not easy. Both production and distribution were subject to strict legal restrictions, with the greatest risks primarily concentrated on practitioners and platforms. However, in the AI era, this mechanism has been completely disrupted.
The Economist reports a shockingly high percentage of people in the UK suffering from deepfake images or videos.
Some non-compliant AI applications, such as DeepFake technology, are becoming tools for school bullying and shaming women. AI can "construct" a naked image from just a photo of someone wearing clothes.
Even if the images are fake, the social death and psychological trauma suffered by the victims are incredibly real .
Even top celebrities aren't immune. Earlier this year, fake photos of Taylor Swift, generated using DeepFake technology, circulated on social media platforms. Because there wasn't enough time to delete the images, X even blocked keyword searches related to Taylor Swift.
While satisfying our "good" desires, it also amplifies our "evil" desires.
404Media recently released a new podcast episode featuring Noelle Perdue, a historian of internet adult content who has written scripts and produced for Pornhub and other related studios. This episode discussed the rise of AI-generated adult content and whether it can truly transform the entire industry.
Podcast cover, Why AI Porn Sucks (with Noelle Perdue)
They were blunt in their podcast: it's a boring, cold, and fake technology .
Even if AI companions claim to alleviate loneliness, they are essentially creating isolation. Current AI is completely isolating people in their own information cocoons, turning what should be a desire to explore outwards into a desire for self-destruction.
When desires lose their boundaries, people lose the ability to connect with reality.
Noelle mentioned that in 2021, she tried using early generative AI adult content, at which time she felt it would be a safe and healthy way to bring users a completely new exploration experience. But now, AI can completely isolate people in their own world, exploration becomes isolation, and desire has no boundaries, which she strongly opposes.
AI has irresponsibly waded into a slightly privacy-related and legally sensitive issue, much like it has invaded other fields. To continue treating AI as merely a simple tool is clearly underestimating its power.
Ultimately, I'm not optimistic about AI-generated adult content. The reason it's always been dangerous is precisely because it's tied to real people, real bodies, and real relationships. What AI is doing is stripping all of that away, leaving only the stimulation itself.
If AI is destined to enter the adult content industry and "succeed," then at least we should admit that this is not something to celebrate.
This article is from the WeChat official account "APPSO" , authored by Discover Tomorrow's Products, and published with authorization from 36Kr.
