AI summary
Summary of article:
Australian startup Apate uses AI agents to impersonate victims and take on scammers. It has accumulated 2.5 million conversations and collected intelligence. It has been adopted by banks, telecoms and governments to improve anti-fraud capabilities.
Most companies use artificial intelligence (AI) agents to improve efficiency, but Australian startup Apt makes AI agents “secret”scam Victims actively deal with scammers and have accumulated 2.5 million conversations, which is equivalent to wastingfraud syndicate For 17 years he was able to gather intelligence before anyone could be harmed.
Apate was founded in 2024 with technology derived from research at Macquarie University in Sydney. It currently deploys thousands of AI agents that can pretend to be people of different ages, genders and accents, answer scam calls in multiple languages, respond to suspicious messages and emails, click on phishing links and even connect to social media to extend interactions with scammers as long as possible.
Brad Joffe, co-founder and chief business officer of Apate, said most industries take action after fraud occurs. “We go straight to the fraudsters to get the information before they harm anyone.”
Apate’s AI agents have so far conducted 2.5 million interactions with scammers, spending 17 years of their time trying to extract information such as bank accounts, cryptocurrency wallets, phone numbers, malicious websites, fake brands and fraudulent techniques, and then providing it to customers such as banks, telecom operators, government agencies and public utilities to strengthen anti-fraud measures.
The idea originated from a scam call that founder and CEO Dali Kafer received a few years ago. She deliberately pretended to be stupid and let the scammer talk to her for 44 minutes. He then wondered if he could automate this method of delaying the scammer and still gaining useful intelligence.
Kafer and his colleagues used machine learning and natural language processing techniques to analyze the content of the scam. Apate also uses conversation records and related research results between AI agents and fraudsters to train models and provide fraud intelligence to customers through an analytics platform.
Apate’s existing customers include the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, TPG Telecom and other utilities, telecommunications operators and government agencies. TPG has transferred approximately 590,000 calls to Apate’s AI agents, and the Commonwealth Bank of Australia has reduced publicly reported fraud losses by 76%. Another Australian bank also used Apat’s outbound agents to successfully disrupt 22 fraudulent operations.
Qiao Fei said Apate has raised about US$10 million to date and plans to invest the latest round of funds in product development and international market expansion.
Summary FAQ
-
Apt AI lets agents pretend to be victims of different identities, answer scam calls, respond to suspicious messages, click on phishing links, and extend conversation time as much as possible to catch scammers and gather useful intelligence.
-
Apate has completed 2.5 million conversations with scammers, costing an estimated 17 years of his time, and successfully collected clues such as bank accounts, cryptocurrency wallets, phone numbers, and malicious websites.
-
Apate was founded in 2024 with technology derived from research at Macquarie University in Sydney. Current clients include Commonwealth Bank of Australia and TPG Telecom; TPG has forwarded approximately 590,000 calls, and the bank’s losses have also been significantly reduced.
