According to a TechCrunch report on October 15th Beijing time, Australian startup Apate is using AI agents to proactively contact scammers, posing as potential victims. These agents engage with fraudsters via phone, text message, email, and social media, collecting information such as bank accounts, cryptocurrency wallets, phone numbers, and phishing websites to help banks, telecommunications operators, and government agencies identify scams in advance. Apate claims its AI agents have engaged in 2.5 million conversations with scammers, consuming the equivalent of 17 years of their time. The company's co-founder stated that Australian telecommunications operator TPG has transferred nearly 590,000 calls to these AI agents, and another unnamed bank used the technology to disrupt 22 scams. Apate's clients also include the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, which the company claims has seen a 76% decrease in publicly reported fraud losses, but has not proven that this decrease was directly caused by its technology. Apate's technology originates from research at Macquarie University, and its core idea is to shift from traditional, reactive fraud detection to proactively contacting scammers and gathering intelligence in advance.
