Apple and Google are actively pointing users to apps that allow users to create nonconsensual sexualised images of real people in their app search results, in spite of policies against such material, a campaign group found.

The Tech Transparency Project, a research arm of the Campaign for Accountability, initially found in January that the Apple and Google app stores hosted more than 100 apps across both stores that allowed “nudification” functions.

The companies each removed more than two dozen of the apps following the report, with some increasing their age ratings.

The new report focused on the companies’ search systems, finding that search terms such as “nudify” and “deepnude” produced multiple apps that could strip clothes off subjects in photos.

The apps can also take images of real people and use AI to make them look naked, put them into pornographic videos, or turn them into sexually explicit chatbots.

Apple and Google both ran ads for nudify apps in some of the search results, and the app stores both suggested additional nudification search terms through their autocomplete features.

The apps viewed by the TTP have been downloaded 483 million times and produced more than $122 million (£90m) in lifetime revenue, according to a mobile analytics firm, with Apple and Google taking a cut of this revenue, the TTP said.

Some 31 of the nudification apps were rated as suitable for minors.

“Apple and Google are helping users to find apps that create deepfake nude images of women,” the TTP said in its study, adding that the companies “are key participants in the spread of AI tools that can turn real people into sexualized images”.

“Far from passive bystanders to this trend, the app stores are actively elevating and promoting these apps,” the study said.

Apple declined to comment. Google said it takes action when policy violations are reported to it and that age ratings for apps in the Google Play Store are set by a third party.

Apple removed 15 of the apps and Google seven after being approached by the TTP.