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AI is making business payment fraud more convincing and easier to produce—not replacing the underlying methods, but improving impersonation across email, voice and video. A polished message or convincing executive call can push an employee toward a transfer or supplier bank-detail change, so the practical defense is to verify the person and payment instructions through a separate, trusted channel.
How is AI changing business email compromise?
Business email compromise (BEC) is payment-transfer fraud that targets people and organizations making legitimate payments. Criminals may use social engineering, compromised business or personal accounts, or computer intrusion to redirect money. Generative AI can make those tactics more persuasive: it can draft official-sounding messages, personalize them, translate them and remove grammar mistakes that might once have looked suspicious. The FBI says AI can reduce the time and effort needed to deceive targets and correct human errors that could otherwise serve as warning signs. The FBI’s December 2024 advisory and INTERPOL’s 2024 African cyberthreat assessment describe these capabilities.
AI is an enabling tool, not the whole fraud. The criminal still needs to influence a payment decision, gain access to an account, or exploit a transfer process. A believable message can help start that chain, while a compromised mailbox or other intrusion can make the request appear to come from a real colleague or supplier.
What forms can an AI-assisted payment scam take?
Email and chat impersonation
A fraudster can use generative AI to write a credible request in the tone of an executive, finance leader or supplier. With suitable data, large language models can imitate the linguistic style and patterns of specific people or organizations, according to INTERPOL’s 2024 assessment. The request may ask for a wire transfer, present new supplier bank details, or frame a payment as urgent and confidential.
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Voice cloning
Cloned audio may be used to make a transfer request sound as though it came from a familiar executive, or to impersonate a public figure or family member. The FBI warns that criminals use AI-generated voice messages in financial fraud. A voice that sounds familiar is not proof of identity, but the existence of voice cloning does not mean it defeats every bank’s authentication controls. The FBI advisory describes possible uses and recommends independent verification.
Deepfake video calls
Real-time deepfake video can be used to impersonate an executive or authority during a call and reinforce an urgent payment instruction. In a case recounted by INTERPOL, an employee at a multinational firm in Hong Kong, China, transferred USD 25 million after executives were impersonated using deepfake technology in a video call in February 2024. This is a single reported incident, not evidence of a typical loss or of how often such attacks succeed. INTERPOL’s 2025/2026 Asia and South Pacific assessment describes the case.
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What do the reported AI and BEC loss figures mean?
The FBI’s 2025 IC3 Annual Report presents AI-related complaint information separately from its broader, cumulative BEC figures. Those measures cover different periods and scopes; the cumulative BEC total is not an AI-loss estimate.
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| Measure | Reported figures | Scope |
|---|---|---|
| AI-related information | 22,364 complaints; $893,346,472 in adjusted losses | FBI IC3 Annual Report for 2025; complaints reporting AI-related information |
| AI-involved BEC | Businesses lost over $30 million | FBI IC3 Annual Report for 2025; the FBI notes that not all BEC tactics use AI |
| Cumulative BEC | 305,033 incidents; $55,499,915,582 in exposed losses | FBI IC3, law enforcement and financial-institution filings, October 2013–December 2023; not AI-specific |
The first two figures come from the FBI IC3 2025 Annual Report; the cumulative BEC figures come from the FBI’s BEC advisory. “AI-related information” does not establish that AI caused every loss in that category. Likewise, the FBI’s over-$30-million AI-involved BEC figure should not be conflated with the much larger cumulative BEC total.
How can a company reduce payment-diversion risk?
Build verification around the payment workflow rather than relying on whether a message, voice or video seems authentic. For an unexpected transfer request or a change to supplier bank details, verify the person and instructions using contact information already held on file—not details supplied in the new request.
- Verify through a separate channel: Call a known number from an existing record or contact the requester through an established route. Do not use a phone number or link included in the suspicious message.
- Keep payment approval controls in the process: Assess whether approval steps cover the types of payments and beneficiary changes employees actually handle, and whether the identity check is independent of the original request.
- Assess email-security controls as one layer: Consider how they address account compromise and suspicious messages, while recognizing that a convincing message may still require a human payment decision.
- Train staff to pause on urgency: A request for secrecy, immediate action or a changed payment destination should prompt a check through the normal process, even when the communication looks and sounds familiar.
These are control categories to assess against an organization’s own workflow, not a guarantee against fraud or a prescribed framework. INTERPOL Secretary General Jürgen Stock said in a March 2024 financial-fraud assessment announcement: “We are facing an epidemic in the growth of financial fraud, leading to individuals, often vulnerable people, and companies being defrauded on a massive and global scale.” INTERPOL’s announcement also said its I-GRIP payment-stop mechanism, launched in 2022, had helped member countries intercept more than USD 500 million in criminal proceeds. INTERPOL attributed those proceeds largely to cyber-enabled fraud; this is not a measured AI-fraud recovery total.
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What should you do if a suspicious request arrives—or a transfer has gone through?
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For an unexpected call claiming to represent a bank or organization, the FBI advises ending the call and contacting that organization using a separately researched, known number. Apply the same independent-check principle to payment instructions: verify the requester and destination using a trusted contact route already on file. The FBI also lists potential deepfake clues, but visual or audio impressions are less dependable than checking identity through an independent channel. See the FBI’s guidance on AI-enabled fraud.
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Act immediately. The FBI’s BEC advisory says to contact the financial institution and request a recall of funds, along with any necessary indemnification documents. The advisory describes BEC proceeds moving through custodial accounts, payment processors, peer-to-peer processors and cryptocurrency exchanges, among other routes. Read the FBI’s BEC advisory.
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