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AI-BASED FINANCIAL SCAMS

- HIMALI PATEL

Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly changing the nature of financial scams. Frauds that once depended on generic scripts and human effort now run on scale, speed and hyper-personalisation, making them cheaper to run, harder to spot, and broader in impact.

Personalisation and scale

The biggest shift is personalisation at an industrial scale. Scammers now use large language models to scrape a victim’s online footprint and figure out how they talk and act. “Al enables criminals to convincingly replicate an individual's voice, likeness, and written communication style,” says Ravindra Baviskar, director, sales engineering (India & Saarc), Sophos, a cybersecurity firm.

Al-based attackers can adapt in real time. “Al adapts to the potential victim’s responses and navigates a conversation to make It more believable,” says Vivek Iyer, partner and financial services risk advisory leader, Grant Thornton Bharat. As the message sounds familiar and urgent, the instinct to doubt reduces.