Australia’s biggest bank will deploy an army of AI bots as part of a radical new plan to reduce the millions of dollars lost to phone scams each year.
Commonwealth Bank is using 10,000 AI bots to impersonate everyday Australians targeted by phone and text-based scammers with near-real-time conversations.
Teaming up with cyber-intelligence firm Apate.ai, the technology is programmed to engage phone scammers and gather “critical intelligence” while also preventing them from speaking to real victims.
The bank hopes the technology can disrupt scam operations by adding thousands of dud targets.
CommBank Group Fraud general manager James Roberts said the bank was “turning the tables by using AI to fight back”.
“Every minute a scammer is engaging with a bot is a minute they’re not targeting an Australian,” Roberts said.
“The near real-time intelligence being gathered is a game-changer in how we help to protect our customers and the broader community.”
Apate.ai founder and chief executive Professor Dali Kaafar said the system was based on a “honeypot” strategy.
“In collaboration with our telco partners, Apate.ai operates a vast and constantly growing network of dedicated telephone numbers connected to the telcos’ networks and designed specifically to be discovered and targeted by scammers.
“When a scammer dials or messages one of these numbers, they actually engage in conversations with one of our AI-powered bots and not a person.”
Phone scams accounted for the highest overall financial losses last year, according to National Anti-Scams Centre data.
