She sounds like another Australian bank customer speaking to a call centre employee, but nothing is as it appears in the world of anti-scam technology.
In fact she is an artificial intelligence (AI) robot (bot) speaking to a scammer in a video prepared by Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) to demonstrate what it claims is an Australian banking first.
CBA said it was using a fleet of thousands of conversational AI bots developed to engage and disrupt scammers, gather critical intelligence and disrupt scam operations via text-based conversations and voice calls.
The bots are deployed by Apate.ai, a cyber-intelligence firm and spin-out from Macquarie University.
“This is about flipping the script,” CBA’s General Manager of Group Fraud James Roberts said in a media release.
“Scammers are increasingly using AI to target Australians – we’re turning the tables by using AI to fight back.
“Every minute a scammer is engaging with a bot, [there] is a minute they're not targeting an Australian.”
When a scammer calls or texts, sophisticated bots engage them in extended conversations, gather intelligence, and feed near real-time insights directly into CBA’s scam control systems and the broader anti-scam ecosystem.
“We’re on a mission to dismantle the business models of scammers around the world,” said Professor Dali Kaafar, CEO & Founder of Apate.ai.
He said the system used a “honeypot” strategy, collaborating with telecommunications partners to operate a vast and constantly growing network of dedicated telephone numbers designed 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,” Kaafar said.
