The Present and Future of Adult Entertainment: A Content Analysis of AI-Generated Pornography Websites

Abstract

Fueled by advances in artificial intelligence (AI), the adult entertainment industry is undergoing a significant transformation. AI-generated pornography—or AI porn—is reshaping how people create and consume sexually explicit content, progressively offering rapid, mass access to large quantities of interactive and highly customizable experiences. Yet, despite its accelerated growth and potential implications for human eroticism, the current state of AI porn remains underexplored. Using a qualitative inductive content analysis, this study examined the functionalities, production strategies, and customization options available on websites allowing AI porn generation (n = 36). All websites included an English language option, which was used for this analysis. Following systematic open coding, categorization, and inter-rater validation, the prevalence of each category was quantified across website data. Results suggest that most sites presently enable image generation (80.6%), with others allowing video generation (41.7%), content alteration (e.g., deepnude, upscaling, facemorphing; 2.8–55.6%), and interactions with artificial agents (44.4%). AI porn generation also predominantly relies on feature selection (97.2%) and/or prompting (72.2%) to customize content elements, including character bases (e.g., human, fictional; 11.1–94.4%), sociodemographic characteristics (27.8–86.1%), body features (72.2%), clothing (75.0%), as well as foundational (resolution, theme, point-of-view; 22.2–69.4%) and contextual aspects (e.g., weather, setting, lighting; 11.1–63.9%). Carrying significant social and ethical implications, these findings point to a gradual evolution toward an AI-driven porn landscape where individuals can create and interact with sexual content tailored to their preferences and fantasies.