The era of AI-assisted online violence is no longer looming. It has arrived. And it is reshaping the threat landscape for women who work in the public sphere around the world.

Our newly published report commissioned by UN Women offers early, urgent evidence indicating that generative AI is already being used to silence and harass women whose voices are vital to the preservation of democracy.

This includes journalists exposing corruption, activists mobilising voters and the human rights defenders working on the frontline of efforts to stall democratic backsliding.

Based on a global survey of women human rights defenders, activists, journalists and other public communicators from 119 countries, our research shows the extent to which generative AI is being weaponised to produce abusive content – in a multitude of forms – at scale.

We surveyed 641 women in five languages (Arabic, English, French, Portuguese and Spanish). The surveys were disseminated via the trusted networks of UN Women, Unesco, the International Center for Journalists and a panel of 22 expert advisers representing intergovernmental organisations, the legal fraternity, civil society organisations, industry and academia.

According to our analysis, nearly one in four (24%) of the 70% of respondents who reported experiencing online violence in the course of their work identified abuse that was generated or amplified by AI tools. In the report, we define online violence as any act involving digital tools which results in or is likely to result in physical, sexual, psychological, social, political or economic harm, or other infringements of rights and freedoms.

But the incidence is not evenly distributed across professions. Women who identify as writers or other public communicators, such as social media influencers, reported the highest exposure to AI-assisted online violence at 30.3%. Women human rights defenders........

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