To discuss this challenge, and support meaningful responses in countering such activity, the Regional Support Office of the Bali Process (RSO) and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) hosted a series of three webinars, bringing together the private sector, government agencies, and civil society.

The discussions, drawing on recommendations made in the joint RSO – OSCE policy brief New Frontiers: Generative AI and Human Trafficking, focused on strengthening cross-sector responses to AI-enabled trafficking. 

Building on this collaboration, the RSO and OSCE will continue tracking emerging AI trends in trafficking and exploitation, working with public and private sectors to promote evidence-based responses and AI-specific legislation to combat these crimes, and support further efforts to put recommendations from discussions into action. 

See the full recording of the two public webinars here: 

• Civil society and NGO emphasis 

• Private sector emphasis 

Nearly a year after the release of the joint RSO – OSCE policy brief New Frontiers: Generative AI and Human Trafficking, the misuse of AI continues to reshape trafficking in persons across both Europe and the Asia-Pacific. The rapid advancement of generative AI – capable of producing realistic fake identities, fabricated documents, and deepfake videos across languages and cultures – has been exploited by transnational organised crime groups to fuel operations such as: 

Online romance and investment scams 

• AI chatbots can maintain convincing romantic conversations with hundreds of fraud victims/potential victims simultaneously, building trust over months to extract ‘financial investments’ 

Trafficking recruitment operations  

• AI creates fake job advertisements and employer profiles across multiple platforms, automatically responding to applicants with legitimate-sounding employment offers that lead to exploitation 

Deepfake-based coercion 

• AI can create realistic intimate videos using victims’ social media photos, which traffickers use for blackmail and psychological control 

Child sexual abuse material (CSAM) 

• Without adequate safeguards, AI can be used to generate explicit imagery of children without real victims, creating material that normalises abuse and fuels demand in criminal networks 

Large-scale social engineering campaigns 

• AI can analyse social media and other personal data to craft personalised recruitment messages that exploit individual psychological vulnerabilities and align messaging to specific cultural backgrounds 

The widespread availability of AI presents a particular challenge for law enforcement. Open-source and open-weight AI models can now operate offline without oversight, while multilingual capabilities enable criminals to target victims across different languages and cultures with minimal technical skills required. This decentralised nature makes criminal AI operations significantly harder to monitor or disrupt through traditional enforcement approaches, underscoring the need for coordinated international responses. 

These webinars served as a platform to operationalise the recommendations of the policy brief, while exploring emerging risks and possible futures for the intersection of AI, trafficking, and transnational organised crime. 

The RSO framework for addressing AI-enabled trafficking centres on three interconnected pillars: detect, investigate, and collaborate. 

Detect: Law enforcement should be on the lookout for AI-generated content across all evidence types. Officers should be trained to recognise when images, communications, or digital personas may be artificially created, developing technical awareness to spot AI manipulation before it can deceive victims. 

Investigate: As good practice, investigations should aim to build as detailed a picture as possible of AI-enabled criminal operations—to determine which specific AI tools traffickers are using, identify novel applications, and trace digital pathways that enable scaled exploitation. Building as great a depth of understanding as possible helps investigators to understand evolving criminal methodologies and build stronger cases. 

Collaborate: Technology companies can use examples of AI misuse to build stronger safety features and detection mechanisms into their platforms. International law enforcement partnerships enable rapid sharing of emerging criminal tactics and cross-border coordination on investigations. Research institutions can analyse patterns across cases to identify trends and develop evidence-based prevention strategies. Together, through information sharing and closer coordination, these collaborative channels have the potential to support more active disruption and mitigation of emerging forms of AI-facilitated trafficking. 

The webinar series highlighted both the scale of the challenge and the opportunity for coordinated international action. As AI continues to evolve, criminal exploitation of these tools will likely become even more sophisticated and widespread. However, the discussions across webinars also demonstrated that effective countermeasures are within reach when sectors work together strategically, and if we’re able to quickly work to build law enforcement capacity and support stronger safety measures being built into generative AI tools, particularly chatbots. 

In the coming months, RSO will continue researching criminal exploitation of AI and developing practical responses, working alongside partners including OSCE. Through these partnerships and notably through the RSO’s open source intelligence (OSINT) training programme, the RSO will further embed the detect-investigate-collaborate framework into law enforcement training, build technical capacity across agencies, and see that operational insights inform both policy development and platform safety measures. By continuing to work together, Bali Process Member States can develop more effective responses to criminal innovation and better protect those most vulnerable to AI-enabled trafficking.