Apate Uses 350,000 AI Virtual Identities to Stall Scammers, Wasting 17 Years of Their Time

Australian startup Apate trains AI to pretend to be scammed, intercepting scammers before they reach real victims. According to TechCrunch, it has completed about 2.5 million AI conversations, consuming roughly 17 years in total. The company has created about 350,000 AI virtual identities that can make calls and send texts; it once kept a scam call going for 54 minutes and gathered anti-fraud intelligence such as bank account and crypto wallet addresses from the conversations.