Deepfake fraud taking place on an industrial scale, study finds

"Tools to create tailored, even personalised, scams leveraging, for example, deepfake videos of Swedish journalists or the president of Cyprus are no longer niche, but inexpensive and easy to deploy at scale, said the analysis from the AI Incident Database. It catalogued more than a dozen recent examples of impersonation for profit, including a deepfake video of Western Australia's premier, Robert Cook, hawking an investment scheme, and deepfake doctors promoting skin creams."

"Last year, a finance officer at a Singaporean multinational paid out nearly $500,000 to scammers during what he believed was a video call with company leadership. UK consumers are estimated to have lost 9.4bn to fraud in the nine months to November 2025. Capabilities have suddenly reached that level where fake content can be produced by pretty much anybody, said Simon Mylius, an MIT researcher who works on a project linked to the AI Incident Database."

"He said: It's become very accessible to a point where there is really effectively no barrier to entry. The scale is changing, said Fred Heiding, a Harvard researcher studying AI-powered scams. It's becoming so cheap, almost anyone can use it now. The models are getting really good they're becoming much faster than most experts think. In early January, Jason Rebholz, the chief executive of Evoke, an AI security company, posted a job offer on LinkedIn."

Deepfake and AI tools are inexpensive, easy to deploy, and enable tailored, personalised impersonation at scale. Recent impersonations include videos of Swedish journalists, the president of Cyprus, a Western Australian premier promoting an investment scheme, and fake doctors endorsing skin creams. A Singapore finance officer paid nearly $500,000 after participating in a convincing impersonated video call. UK consumers lost an estimated 9.4bn to fraud in the nine months to November 2025. Frauds, scams, and targeted manipulation constituted the largest share of incidents reported to the AI Incident Database in 11 of the past 12 months. Model capabilities are rapidly improving and lowering barriers to entry.

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