In the modern age image decoders need to handle untrusted inputs, and the big players rarely use hardware image decoding, even when it's available, because it's so hard to rely on its memory safety.

Several 'zero click exploits' have involved image/document format decoder bugs, as messaging apps and file browsers will often generate preview images the moment an image arrives.

All Browsers do use hardware decoding for video though, I doubt safety is a major factor.