# AI bots are now fighting back against scammers

> Governments struggle to stop cybercrime across borders, so companies are deploying AI to waste scammers' time and gather intelligence.
- Title: AI bots are now fighting back against scammers · WIRED
- Summary: Governments struggle to stop cybercrime across borders, so companies are deploying AI to waste scammers' time and gather intelligence. AI systems are being…
- Keywords: apate, ai bots, cybercrime, scam prevention, dali kaafar, phone scams, honeypots, eth zurich, bots, fighting, back, against
- Source: WIRED — https://wired.com/story/ai-is-getting-really-good-at-messing-with-cybercriminals
- Author: Lily Hay Newman
- Published: 2026-10-10T12:00:00+00:00
- Read time: 2 min
- Topics: apate, ai bots, cybercrime, scam prevention, dali kaafar, phone scams, honeypots, eth zurich
## Governments can't stop global scammers
Governments worldwide struggle to crack down on cybercriminals operating beyond their borders. This has inspired alternative efforts using automation to target scammers at scale.
## Apate deploys AI victims to waste scammers' time
Australian company Apate has spent two years building AI bots trained to keep phone scammers talking as long as possible without falling for their schemes, while gathering intelligence.
## Every minute on a bot saves hundreds of victims
Apate founder and CEO Dali Kaafar says a minute a scammer spends with a bot is a minute where you're probably saving hundreds, if not thousands of possible people being reached out to by that…

> A minute that a scammer is talking to a bot or an agent is a minute where you're probably saving hundreds, if not thousands of possible people being reached out to by that exact same scammer.
## Apate's bots collect massive scam intelligence
Apate's platform, used by banks and supported by telecom companies, operates around three hundred fifty thousand bots. The company has collected more than two hundred fifty thousand pieces of information about fraudsters in real-time.
## Bots mimic real people convincingly
The bots have different personalities, language skills, and profiles so scammers don't detect they're conversing with AI. They sometimes have WhatsApp, sometimes don't, and sometimes hang up saying they'll call back later.

> sometimes [the bots] do have WhatsApp, sometimes they don't. Sometimes they pick up the phone, sometimes they just actually hang up on the scammer saying, 'I'll come back to you later.'
## Scammers still operate at massive scale
Cybercriminals initiate billions of messages and calls each year, with sophisticated operations running physical, industrial scale scamming sites. Law enforcement hasn't been able to stop the expansion of digital scamming overall.
## AI honeypots keep attackers engaged longer
Researchers at ETH Zurich found that AI-powered honeypots keep attackers engaged significantly longer than predictable systems. Attackers are more convinced by LLM simulated honeypots and mark them as actual honeypots at much lower rates.

> If these systems are built well enough, then I think it's quite advantageous for defenders.
## AI could transform anti-scam efforts
Better intelligence sharing between police, social media companies, banks and other industries could be aided by AI-driven monitoring. Using generative AI to keep cybercriminals preoccupied and wasting resources appears increasingly effective.
## Key takeaway

AI systems are being deployed to frustrate scammers by posing as victims, wasting their resources while collecting intelligence about their operations.