New updates have been reported about Malwarebytes.
Malwarebytes is sharpening its strategic focus on AI-enabled scams with a new research report, “Artificial Intimacy: Love and lies in the age of AI,” which finds that artificial intelligence is deeply embedded in modern relationships and increasingly weaponized for abuse. The study, based on a March 2026 survey of 1,500 respondents across the U.S., U.K., Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, highlights that 37% of people do not consider a romantic relationship with an AI chatbot to be cheating, while roughly one in six have used chatbots for companionship or emotional support.
For Malwarebytes, the more material finding is the rapid rise of AI-powered sextortion, deepfake nudes, and romance scams, challenges that tie directly into demand for its consumer and mobile security offerings. One in ten respondents say AI has been used to create explicit imagery of them without consent, and another one in ten report threats to release AI-generated compromising content, aligning with data that one in six mobile users has been targeted by sextortion scams.
The report underscores a broader collapse in digital trust that Malwarebytes sees as a tailwind for its scam detection and identity protection solutions: 88% of respondents believe AI makes it harder to distinguish real human content online, and 84% no longer view convincing video evidence as definitive proof. Malwarebytes’ Global Head of Scam and AI Research, Shahak Shalev, warns that AI-driven fake profiles, synthetic photos, and fabricated explicit images are now standard tools in romance and confidence schemes, causing not just financial loss but lasting psychological damage.
From a product and go-to-market standpoint, the research supports Malwarebytes’ positioning as a provider of AI-powered protection across devices and channels, reinforcing the importance of tools like Malwarebytes Scam Guard that analyze messages and content for scam indicators. The company is leveraging these insights to promote practical risk-reduction behaviors, such as limiting publicly available voice and video, tightening social media privacy, and avoiding the transmission of money, crypto, or intimate images to online-only contacts.
While the report does not disclose financial metrics, it frames an expanding threat landscape that is likely to sustain consumer and enterprise demand for real-time cyber protection, especially in mobile and social contexts where romance and sextortion scams proliferate. Executives should note that younger cohorts and regular AI users are more permissive about generating explicit images without consent, suggesting future growth in both incident volume and regulatory scrutiny around AI misuse, content authenticity, and privacy. This environment positions Malwarebytes to capitalize on rising awareness of AI-enabled fraud, provided it continues to invest in detection research, privacy-centric tools, and global education campaigns anchored in the trends surfaced in this study.