Australia’s largest bank has unleashed thousands of Aussie slang-speaking AI bots and told them to waste the time of scammers.
As cybercriminals leverage AI to refine their tactics, Commonwealth Bank hopes to dismantle the business models of scammers around the world and make it harder for them to operate.
By partnering with Apate.ai, the bank will deploy thousands of conversational AI bots that sound exactly like a human to disrupt scammers targeting unsuspecting Australians via text and voice conversations.
The bank says the fleet AI-powered bot profiles will be a key line of defence in the fight against scams.
Known as a ‘honeypot’ strategy, Professor Dali Kaafar, CEO and founder of Apate.ai says the technology operates a vast and constantly growing network of dedicated phone numbers connected to the telco networks designed specifically 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,” Professor Kaafar explains.
Under mounting pressure from customers, the banking sector has been exploring ways to make Australia a more difficult target for scammers, with cross-industry collaboration among telco providers, big tech and government agencies sharing intelligence to coordinate a takedown.
Bots with personalities
According to CommBank, the bots have been designed to be extremely difficult to detect by scammers, making them incredibly effective at gathering intelligence and disrupting scam operations.
Each AI-bot personality has been uniquely crafted with diverse identities, varying in age, gender, tons and cultural nuance.
Some have even been fine-tuned with Australian slang and humour to seem more realistic, even calling the scammers ‘mate’ as they engage in realistic conversations.
The bots have been taught to flip the script with the hope that making small talk will waste enough time while yielding no result will force scammers to hang up the phone or stop texting bank customers.
When the scammer calls or texts, sophisticated bots engage them in extended conversations, gather intelligence and collate insights to be fed directly into the bank’s scam control systems and then out into the broader anti-scam ecosystem.
The AI-bots are engineered to engage scammers, gather critical intelligence and disrupt scam operations, with near real-time scam intelligence to safeguard customers.
Engaging with scammers
James Roberts, general manager of group fraud at CommBank says the approach is about flipping the script.
“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 is a minute that they’re not targeting an Australian.”
[L to R]: Professor Dali Kaafar, CEO and founder of Apate.ai; and James Roberts, general manager of group fraud at CommBank.
CommBank hopes the AI-bots will help the bank identify emerging scam trends.
“While we don’t share specific methods, this collaboration strengthens our ability to respond quickly and effectively to evolving threats,” Roberts says.
“We know that no single organisation or sector can solve this alone.
“That’s why it is so important to collaborate across sectors to disrupt scam operations at scale,” he says.
CommBank isn’t alone.
An AFR Intelligence report produced in partnership with NextGen released three months ago found that all of Australia’s big four banks are deploying AI to identify patterns that will improve banking functions, including fraud prevention.
Scam losses
Australians lost $2 billion to scammers in 2024.
While that’s a drop on the year before, it’s still an eyewatering loss, and customers are demanding that banks do more to protect them from scams and keep their money safe.
Phone scams accounted for the highest overall financial losses last year, and were more likely to result in significant individual losses, according to National Anti-Scams Centre data.
During the same period, text messages were the second most common contact method used by scammers, with investment scams responsible for the highest losses.
The expanded bot network being deployed by CommBank follows a successful pilot program announced by Macquarie University in late 2024.
Since then, the bank has diverted hundreds of thousands of scam calls have been diverted to bots, with intelligence gathered helping to generate real-time alerts and blocks on CommBank customer accounts.
