Transforming Trust and Safety Through AI-driven, Scalable, and Resilient Content Operations

The content trust and safety industry is undergoing a pivotal transformation driven by regulatory acceleration, AI-driven automation, and structural wellness challenges. With demand for harmful content moderation growing at a strong double-digit CAGR, new global regimes in the EU, the UK, and India are mandating “safety by design” and imposing fines that reach 10% of global revenue. These pressures have reshaped the market landscape, with medium-sized clients now accounting for 41% of provider revenue, displacing large enterprises as the primary driver of growth. This democratization, alongside a shift toward transactional sectors such as e-commerce, underpinned an approximate 11.2% growth in service provider revenue, reinforcing the urgent need for AI-native platforms and resilient workforce models.

Both demand- and supply-side trends are covered in Avasant’s Content Trust and Safety Business Process Transformation 2025–2026 Market Insights™ and Content Trust and Safety Business Process Transformation 2025–2026 RadarView™, respectively. These reports present a comprehensive study of the content trust and safety services industry and closely examine the market leaders, innovators, disruptors, challengers, and tech pioneers. They also provide a view into key market trends and developments impacting the content trust and safety services space.

Avasant evaluated 70 service providers across two dimensions: practice maturity and future-proofing. Of the 70 providers, we recognized 24 that brought the most value to the market over the past 12 months.

The report recognizes service providers in four categories:

• • Leaders: Accenture, Concentrix, Tech Mahindra, TP, and Wipro
  • Innovators: Cognizant, Foundever, Genpact, Infosys, TaskUs, and Telus Digital
  • Disruptors: Firstsource, Sutherland, TTEC, and
  • Challengers: Active Fence, Alorica, Appen, and TDCX
  • Tech Pioneers: Besedo, Connectys, Global Logic, Modsquad, and WebPurif

Figure 1 below from the full report illustrates these categories:

“As trust and safety needs rise, especially with generative AI producing deepfakes and synthetic abuse vectors, enterprises are moving away from point solutions,” said Aditya Jain, research leader with Avasant. “Platforms now seek AI-native partners who offer multilingual accuracy, explainable AI, governance, and moderator support at scale.”

The reports provide a number of findings, including the following:

• • New regimes in the EU, the UK, and India now mandate “safety by design” with penalties reaching 10% of global revenue or uncapped cumulative amounts, elevating robust capabilities over minimal compliance.
  • Revenue is shifting toward transactional sectors, with e-commerce and online marketplaces more than tripling their share from 3% to 10%, driven by a critical need for fraud prevention and trust in online transactions.
  • A structural wellness crisis has emerged as a severe operational challenge, with nearly half of moderators at risk of depression due to daily dose-response exposure to toxic content, including 77% exposure to hate speech and 34% to child sexual abuse material (CSAM).
  • The industry has undergone a massive democratization, with medium-sized clients growing nearly six times to displace very large clients as the single biggest revenue driver in 2025.

“The era of opaque content moderation is over. With stricter regulations and declining user trust, platforms can no longer hide behind automation metrics,” said Avasant Partner Swapnil Bhatnagar. “Consumers and regulators demand explainable, auditable decisions. Those clinging to black-box moderation risk fines, reputational loss, and churn.”

This RadarView features detailed profiles of 24 service providers, along with their solutions, offerings, and experience in assisting enterprises and individuals in their content trust and safety journey.

This Research Byte is a brief overview of Avasant’s Content Trust and Safety Business Process Transformation 2025–2026 Market Insights™ and Content Trust and Safety Business Process Transformation 2025–2026 RadarView™. (Click for pricing.)