AI has rapidly accelerated the transformation of the global violent extremist landscape by acting as a force multiplier in the manufacturing and dissemination of extremist propaganda. This presents a broader set of challenges for states and reinforces the need for technologically grounded counter-violent extremist frameworks.

Artificial Intelligence (AI), primarily through rapidly emerging and multifaceted platforms, is transforming the pace, scope, nature and intensity of information dissemination globally. At the same time, it carries with it major ramifications for the global violent extremist landscape. Non-state actors have increasingly used AI tools to disseminate propaganda and cultivate echo chambers, thereby legitimising their extremist worldviews. This has amplified the stakes for state actors in the era defined by strategic storytelling and narrative warfare.

AI tools and AI-enabled content have frequently been misused by non-state actors, with a platform being equally pivotal in furthering extremist worldviews and countering them. As a result, this has underscored the multifaceted nature of this broader domain. This is particularly concerning because even AI tools that promote free trial versions, let alone those that offer subscriptions with far-reaching uses, can, if utilised strategically, dramatically redefine the next phase of global violent extremism.

Furthermore, this has reinforced the compounding need to implement policy reforms to counter the exploitative uses of AI. Such challenges have widened due to geopolitical and geo-economic polarisation, despite the growing need to accommodate existing realities. Yet, despite AI’s visible impact on the broader info-tech ecosystem, its profound security implications and potential to be repurposed as a counter-violent extremist tool remain underexamined.

Shift from a Centralised to a Decentralised Propaganda Machinery

One of the major transformative shifts in the global violent extremist landscape has been that a hierarchical media wing within a centralised violent extremist organisation is no longer the sole authority spearheading the propaganda ecosystem. Instead, the manufacturing and dissemination of extremist propaganda has become increasingly decentralised. Here, the role of micro cells, digital communities, lone wolves, and online recruiters has become increasingly prominent. Youth, in particular, have rapidly become among the primary consumers of gamified and memefied propaganda, especially post-COVID-19 outbreak.

According to the report jointly released by the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute and the United Nations Office on Counter-Terrorism in November 2025, online radicalisation, particularly among young gamers, has become a focal point of concern. As per the findings, it has been observed that:

Globally, terrorists and violent extremist actors have exploited gaming platforms… Tactics         range from building violently racist and xenophobic games to recreating attacks on religious sites, directly targeting gamers for recruitment via in-game chats, and taking advantage of misogynistic, racist, and insular elements of some gaming communities to radicalise members to violence. Since 2019, over nine major attacks have involved the use of gaming platforms or services.[i]

Globally, terrorists and violent extremist actors have exploited gaming platforms… Tactics         range from building violently racist and xenophobic games to recreating attacks on religious sites, directly targeting gamers for recruitment via in-game chats, and taking advantage of misogynistic, racist, and insular elements of some gaming communities to radicalise members to violence. Since 2019, over nine major attacks have involved the use of gaming platforms or services.[i]

This has been the case as violent extremist groups, including White Supremacists or Islamists, including ISIS sympathisers or recruits, have migrated to the digital sphere to remain relevant amid increased physical crackdowns on organisations, battlefield defeats, or impositions of sanctions resulting in the curbing of their terror financing operations. These trends have been on the rise in an increasingly interconnected society with widespread digital penetration. It has broadly been observed that extremist groups, lone wolves, and online communities have largely benefitted from wide-ranging issues persisting globally, including digital illiteracy and the........

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