There’s an old saying in law enforcement that to catch a criminal, you have to think like a criminal.
Now, one Australian startup, Apate.ai, is taking that idea into the digital age by deployingartificial intelligence to pose as potential fraud targets, distract scammers and vacuum up valuable information about them that could severely curb scams.
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“Traditional approaches to scam defence rely on after-the-fact intelligence,” Apate.ai says on its website. “Our approach is different. Rather than reacting after the damage is done, we put our armies of lifelike AI bots right in the firing line of scammers, disrupting their operations in real-time and stopping scam at the
The technology focuses on collecting data and buying time, two issues that have vexed fraud fighters.
“Our conversational AI is trained on extensive scam data, enabling it to respond naturally and keep scammers engaged for prolonged periods,” the company added. “This ensures that fraudsters waste valuable resources while we gather the intelligence needed to shut down their operations.”
Apate.ai says its AI agents have wasted 17 years of scammers’ time across 2.5 million conversations Its agents have the capacity to answer scam calls, messages, emails and can follow phishing links and join social media groups. The company’s approach could be welcome news for the fraud-prevention sector
Data from the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center shows that in 2025, more than 1 million complaints were filed and nearly $20.9 billion was lost to cybercrime — up 26% from 2024. Additionally, the Federal Trade Commission reported $15.9 billion lost to consumer fraud in 2025.
Gathering the fraud information that matters
Apate.ai, which is rolling into the U.S. market after an $8.15 million funding round in August, lays out an intriguing case for its “armies of adversarial conversational AI agents,” as it notes on its website.
“Most of the industry works after the fact,” Brad Joffe, co-founder and chief commercial officer, told TechCrunch. “Telcos block numbers, but scammers just get new ones. Banks watch transactions, but by then the scammer has already reached the customer. We go to the scammer directly and get the information before anyone gets hurt.”
