Apate sends AI agents undercover to get scammed so they can gather fraud intelligence
Apate's undercover AI agents engage scammers and sell the resulting fraud intelligence to banks and telcos.
Australian startup Apate deploys thousands of AI agents that pose as victims on calls, messages, email, and social platforms to keep scammers engaged and extract fraud indicators. The company says the agents have held 2.5 million conversations and that customers such as Commonwealth Bank of Australia and TPG Telecom use the resulting intelligence for anti-fraud controls. TPG has diverted nearly 590,000 calls to the agents, and Commonwealth has reported a 76% drop in publicly reported scam losses. Apate, a TechCrunch Disrupt Startup Battlefield 200 finalist founded from Macquarie University research, raised $8.15 million in seed funding in August.