Reports from US law enforcement show a dramatic rise in crimes using artificial intelligence to target children, raising urgent questions about how schools, parents and safety agencies can protect learners as AI becomes more pervasive in and beyond the classroom.
Explosive growth in AI-enabled abuse
Nebraska Public Media News reported that Gene Kowell, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Omaha field office, told an audience that the bureau has seen a sharp increase in reports of AI-generated sexual exploitation material involving children. According to Kowell, the FBI received about 5,000 such reports in 2023 and 182,000 the following year.
“You go back to 2023, I think that year we saw across the FBI maybe 5,000 reports of artificially generated, sexually exploited content,” Kowell said. “Last year it was up to 182,000.”
Kowell warned that artificial intelligence can make images and content appear as if someone lives locally when they do not, and that the technology lowers the bar for creating explicit images without ever obtaining them from the child directly.
How AI changes the dynamics of exploitation
The FBI official explained that perpetrators no longer need to coerce a child into sending sexual images. Instead, a genuine photograph — even a benign one taken at a public place such as a library — can be manipulated to produce explicit images that appear to be of the child.
The reporting also noted that the law treats AI-generated sexual content involving children as a crime even when the images are not of a specific, identifiable child. The expansion of means to produce such material has led to new criminal cases: Nebraska Public Media News reported that a former teacher from Millard pleaded guilty to three counts of possession of child sexual abuse material that he had generated through artificial intelligence.
Implications for schools, parents and policy
While the story is focused on Nebraska, the trends described have direct implications for schools and education systems everywhere. Key areas for attention include:
- Safeguarding and reporting: ensuring staff know how to identify and report AI-related online harms;
- Digital literacy and prevention: teaching learners about the risks of sharing images and the ways AI can be misused;
- Parent engagement: keeping communication channels open so children feel able to report worrying interactions.
The FBI agent encouraged parents to maintain open lines of communication with their children and to discuss the dangers of interacting with strangers online.
Data snapshot
| Year | FBI reports of AI-related sexual exploitation (approx.) |
|---|---|
| 2023 | 5,000 |
| 2024 | 182,000 |
These figures, reported by Nebraska Public Media News and attributed to the FBI’s Omaha field office, illustrate how quickly AI-driven harms can scale and the urgency for education authorities to adapt safeguarding measures, policies and training.
For South African schools, the story serves as a prompt to review existing child-protection protocols and digital-safety education. Practical steps include updating acceptable-use policies, ensuring that reporting pathways to SAPS and appropriate child-protection services are clear, and providing teachers and parents with guidance on recognising and responding to AI-enabled abuse.
Keeping learners safe in a rapidly changing digital environment requires coordinated action across education, policing and family support systems. The recent US figures underline that complacency is not an option: as technology advances, so must the measures that protect children.
