Safe Online, the UNICEF-backed investment platform, has awarded USD 8.1 million to 30 grantees developing AI-driven solutions to combat technology-facilitated child sexual exploitation and abuse. The funding round addresses the proliferation of AI-generated CSAM, faster and more sophisticated online grooming, and the need for infrastructure enabling hotlines, industry and law enforcement to share data and respond effectively. Recipients include the Digital Futures for Children Centre at LSE, working with children in six countries to uncover hidden risks in generative AI systems; Qhala Trust in Kenya, developing Africa's first child-centred AI safety benchmarks; and Kindred Tech, scaling AI-powered tools to help investigators identify victims and accelerate exploitation investigations. Safe Online has invested over USD 100 million across more than 180 projects in over 100 countries during the past decade, with executive director Marija Manojlovic warning the crisis of technology-facilitated child sexual exploitation passed a breaking point some time ago.
The operational gap Safe Online's grantees are attempting to close—real-time detection of grooming, sextortion and CSAM distribution before harm occurs—is precisely what Guardii delivers at commercial scale today. Guardii's AI platform monitors direct messages across Instagram, Snapchat, Discord, Roblox and other channels in real time, with purpose-built detection modules for grooming, sextortion, AI-generated and traditional CSAM, age-inappropriate contact, cyberbullying, and acute distress or suicide-risk signals. Where Safe Online funds research into what might work, Guardii—a world-leading AI online-safety platform and Meta Business Partner backed by Startmate—intercepts hostile contact at the point it reaches the child, blocks or flags the message before it is read, and surfaces the child in crisis to a parent, school or designated professional, enabling rapid escalation to the right authority when seconds count.
