Very few things are more infuriating than fraud. Likewise, few things are more satisfying than perpetrators of fraud getting what they deserve. As proof of this, we offer The Beekeeper, a movie that had absolutely no business being as successful as it was. Sure, it had Jason Statham as the Beekeeper and Jeremy Irons and lots of explosions, things and people on fire, cool martial arts sequences and even actual bees (none of which were harmed in the making of the film), but there wasn’t much to suggest it would be the most successful solo film of Statham’s career…which it was.
So if it wasn’t Statham’s acting chops or questionable CGI that got the job done, what was it? It satisfied audiences. It was amazingly satisfying to see fraudsters tracked down and get what they may or may not have deserved, whether it was having their buildings burned to the ground, or being dragged off a bridge by a truck, or dropped down an elevator shaft or…well, you get the idea. Seriously, this was an angry Beekeeper.
In real life, it’s simply unrealistic (not to mention more than a little bit illegal) to try to respond to fraud this way. In real life, fraud is still on the rise, and AI agents are now being used to make fraud more clever than ever. Scammers are now automating and scaling fraudulent activities, making scams more sophisticated, personalized, and harder to detect, shifting fraud from human-driven to autonomous AI systems.
Here’s a breakdown of how AI agents are being used for fraud:
Deepfake Scams and Voice Cloning: AI agents can generate realistic audio and video to create highly convincing impersonation scams. They can clone a person’s voice from a short social media clip, then use this cloned voice to call a victim, impersonating a family member or a company executive in a state of urgent need. AI can also create lifelike videos of individuals doing or saying things they never did. This is used in business scams. In one notable case, a finance employee at a multinational firm was tricked by a deepfake video call into transferring $25 million.
Automated Phishing and Social Engineering: AI tools are being used to create hyper-personalized and scalable phishing campaigns that bypass traditional security measures. Large Language Models (LLMs) can create phishing emails that are free of grammatical errors and awkward phrasing, which are common red flags in traditional scams. They can also mimic the writing style of a trusted individual or an organization. AI agent attacks aren’t limited to email. They can orchestrate multi-channel campaigns that combine personalized emails with voice calls, text messages, and even real-time chatbot responses, all designed to maintain a consistent and believable impersonation.
Synthetic Identity Fraud: AI agents are accelerating the creation and deployment of “synthetic identities,” which are fictional personas built from a mix of real and fabricated data. Fraudsters combine stolen information (like a valid Social Security Number) with AI-generated names, addresses, and images to create an identity that appears legitimate. AI agents can also be used to open new fraudulent accounts at scale. These synthetic identities can be used to apply for credit cards, loans, or other financial services. Because the identity is entirely new, there is no credit history to raise red flags, and the fraud can go undetected for months or even years as the scammer “incubates” the identity, slowly building a credit profile before making large purchases and disappearing.
“It’s unfortunate how people are using AI agents,” says MacguyverTech’s Steve (Mac) McKeon. “People are already wary of AI, and now there are AI agents being engineered to take advantage of them, using social engineering.”
Fortunately, there’s help available. For every bad actor, there are white hats ready. AI agents are being developed to “fight fire with fire.” “Agent-aware” AI is specifically designed to detect and analyze the behavior of other AI agents, helping to differentiate between legitimate automated activity and malicious bot traffic. Instead of just looking at what a user does, AI agents analyze how they do it. This includes subtle patterns like typing speed, mouse movements and the way an app or website is navigated. AI agents can build a profile of a legitimate user’s behavior and detect when an interaction doesn’t match that profile, even if the user has the correct login credentials. This is particularly effective against sophisticated fraudsters who use stolen credentials.
“AI agents are helping our clients every day,” McKeon continues. “They learn and adapt to new fraud tactics as they process new data, and refine their models to help stay ahead of scammers. As they change their tactics, the agents evolve with them.”
While AI agents are considerably more subtle than Jason Statham walking into a fraudster base with a gasoline can, they’re also considerably more effective for your business.
For more information about how AI agents can help your business operate more securely, efficiently and profitably, visit macguyvertech.com.
For a more in-depth look at how AI agents can help your business, click here.