How Generative AI's 'Deepfake Economy' Is Hobbling Small Businesses
Several small business owners told Business Insider that since ChatCPT's debut three years ago, the deepfake economy has blown up. Now, scammers are using these deepfakes to pose as employees of a company, running cons that are wreaking havoc on the brands' reputations and bottom lines.
Don't Miss:
Named a TIME Best Invention and Backed by 5,000+ Users, Kara's Air-to-Water Pod Cuts Plastic and Costs —
$100k+ in investable assets? – no cost, no obligation.
An unnamed finance clerk at engineering firm Arup told the outlet about a time he joined a video call with his AI versions of colleagues. One of these "colleagues," supposedly the company's chief financial officer, asked him to approve a series of overseas transfers worth more than $25 million. Believing that the request came from his boss, the finance clerk approved the transactions. Only after the money had been sent did he learn that the colleagues were actually deepfake recreations of his real coworkers.
The finance clerk isn't the only one being deceived by these impressionists. According to data from Chinabuse, TRM Labs' open-source fraud reporting platform, generative AI-enabled scams rose by 456% between May 2024 and April, when compared with the same period the year before.
Another survey from Nationwide Insurance released in September found that 12% of small business owners had faced at least one deepfake scam within the previous year. Small businesses, the survey said, are more likely to fall victim to these types of scams because they lack the cybersecurity infrastructure of larger companies.
Trending: This AI-Powered Trading Platform Has 5,000+ Users, 27 Pending Patents, and a $43.97M Valuation —
Rob Duncan, vice president of strategy at Netcraft, told Business Insider that he isn't surprised at the increase in highly personalized attacks against small businesses. Generative AI has made it much easier for inexperienced scammers to pose as brands and launch these scams. As AI continues to improve, "attackers can more easily spoof employees, fool customers, or impersonate partners across multiple channels," he said.
Many of the platforms used by small businesses, like Teams and Zoom, are getting better at detecting AI and weeding out accounts that don't have real people behind them. However, many experts worry that improved detection tools are making the AI problem worse.
Beyond Identity CEO Jasson Casey told Business Insider that the data collected by platforms like Zoom and Teams is not only used to suss out deepfakes but to train sophisticated AI models. This creates a vicious cycle that becomes "an arms race defenders cannot win.'Casey and Robin Pugh, the executive director of non-profit Intelligence for Good, say that small businesses can best protect themselves from deepfake scams by focusing on confirming identities rather than disproving AI use. They also warn that these generative AI-based scams will not be going away anytime soon.
Nina Etemadi, cofounder of a Philadelphia-based small business named Cake Life Bake Shop, agrees, telling Business Insider, 'Doing business online gets more necessary and high risk every year. AI is just part of that."
Read Next: Many are using retirement income calculators to check if they're on pace —
Image: Shutterstock
UNLOCKED: 5 NEW TRADES EVERY WEEK. Click now to get top trade ideas daily, plus unlimited access to cutting-edge tools and strategies to gain an edge in the markets.
Get the latest stock analysis from Benzinga?
APPLE (AAPL): Free Stock Analysis Report
TESLA (TSLA): Free Stock Analysis Report
This article How Generative AI's 'Deepfake Economy' Is Hobbling Small Businesses originally appeared on Benzinga.com
© 2025 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
23 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Nvidia in the Crosshairs: China Just Escalated the AI Chip War
Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) just hit another speed bump in China. Days after the U.S. rolled back export restrictions on its H20 chipdesigned specifically to comply with sanctionsChinese regulators summoned Nvidia to address alleged serious security vulnerabilities. The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) raised concerns tied to U.S. lawmakers' comments suggesting these chips may carry location-tracking or shutdown features. The agency demanded internal documentation and clarification from Nvidia's local team. No official details were shared beyond that, but investors are watching closely. The stock gained 2.5% on Germany's Tradegate, supported in part by strong earnings from Microsoft and Meta, but this probe introduces fresh uncertainty. Warning! GuruFocus has detected 5 Warning Signs with NVDA. The timing couldn't be more delicate. CEO Jensen Huang had just wrapped up a high-profile China visit, spotlighting local champions like DeepSeek and Tencent while calling China a global AI powerhouse. Meanwhile, U.S. officials had been framing the H20 green light as a goodwill gesturehoping it would unlock better access to China's rare earths. But now, Chinese regulators are signaling they're not quite sold. Local chipmakers like SMIC and Cambricon popped more than 5% following the CAC's statement, suggesting markets see this as a tailwind for China's self-reliance push. As Forrester's Charlie Dai put it: H20 sales could now face delays, just as China doubles down on homegrown tech. Underneath all this is a bigger chessboard. The U.S. had loosened chip export rules after trade talks in London, and in return, China allowed more outbound flow of rare-earth minerals. But the CAC's sudden scrutiny of the H20 chipespecially one already stripped down to meet U.S. compliancefeels like a move to keep pressure in the trade negotiations. At the same time, domestic players like Huawei are rolling out rivals like the Ascend 910C, which are already being compared to Nvidia's chips for inference workloads. As trade officials sidestep direct comment, one thing is clear: Nvidia's foothold in China remains fragile, and investors will need to watch how this unfoldsone regulatory move at a time. This article first appeared on GuruFocus. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
23 minutes ago
- Yahoo
AMD Reports August 5—Analyst Sees Q3 Upside and CPU Market Gains
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NASDAQ:) is one of the . On July 29, BofA Securities raised its price target on the stock to $200.00 from $175.00 while maintaining a 'Buy' rating. The rating affirmation comes ahead of AMD's earnings report due on August 5th. According to the firm, China AI shipments will potentially resume in the second half of 2025, adding $0.7-$1 billion to 2025 AI GPU revenue and $1.5-$2 billion to 2026 (calendar years). 'AMD reports Tuesday, August 5 after market close. Read-throughs point to: 1) potential (yet unconfirmed) China AI shipment resumption in 2H, adding ~$0.7–$1 billion to CY25 AI GPU sales and ~$1.5–$2 billion to CY26; 2) stronger than expected pricing for its current-gen MI355X ($20K+ vs. $17K consensus); 3) continued strong demand for AI/GPU driven by rising cloud capex; 4) easier 2H PC unit comps, given AMD's recent PC strength was mostly average selling price (ASP)-driven rather than unit-based; 5) AMD's 2H PC outlook is already well below seasonal by 1300bps/1400bps in Q3/Q4; and 6) healthy enterprise demand (e.g., HPE/TXN)." A close up of the hand of a financial analyst, holding a copy of a report from a rating agency. "Overall, we expect upside to Q2/Q3 results and guidance at $7.5 billion+/$8.5 billion+ in sales (vs. consensus $7.4 billion/$8.3 billion) and CY25 sales/EPS toward $33 billion+/$4.10+ (vs. consensus $32.2 billion/$4.01). Longer-term, we expect AMD to exceed 30% of the overall CPU market by CY26, up from just under 20% in CY23, and potentially reach 4–5% of the AI GPU market. Intel's prioritization of profitability and manufacturing uncertainty offers greater opportunity for AMD to gain CPU share. We reiterate our Buy rating and raise our price objective to $200 from $175, now based on 36x CY26E P/E (from 31x), reflecting a stronger AI CPU/GPU environment, but still within the historical 13x–39x range.' -Vivek Arya Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMD) develops and sells semiconductors, processors, and GPUs for data centers, gaming, AI, and embedded applications. While we acknowledge the potential of AMD as an investment, we believe certain AI stocks offer greater upside potential and carry less downside risk. If you're looking for an extremely undervalued AI stock that also stands to benefit significantly from Trump-era tariffs and the onshoring trend, see our free report on the best short-term AI stock. READ NEXT: 10 Must-Watch AI Stocks on Wall Street and Disclosure: None.
WIRED
25 minutes ago
- WIRED
Inside the Summit Where China Pitched Its AI Agenda to the World
Jul 31, 2025 11:04 AM Behind closed doors, Chinese researchers are laying the groundwork for a new global AI agenda—without input from the US. Three days after the Trump administration published its much-anticipated AI action plan, the Chinese government put out its own AI policy blueprint. Was the timing a coincidence? I doubt it. China's 'Global AI Governance Action Plan' was released on July 26, the first day of the World Artificial Intelligence Conference (WAIC), the largest annual AI event in China. Geoffrey Hinton and Eric Schmidt were among the many Western tech industry figures who attended the festivities in Shanghai. Our WIRED colleague Will Knight was also on the scene. The vibe at WAIC was the polar opposite of Trump's America-first, regulation-light vision for AI, Will tells me. In his opening speech, Chinese Premier Li Qiang made a sobering case for the importance of global cooperation on AI. He was followed by a series of prominent Chinese AI researchers, who gave technical talks highlighting urgent questions the Trump administration appears to be largely brushing off. Zhou Bowen, leader of the Shanghai AI Lab, one of China's top AI research institutions, touted his team's work on AI safety at WAIC. He also suggested the government could play a role in monitoring commercial AI models for vulnerabilities. In an interview with WIRED, Yi Zeng, a professor at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and one of the country's leading voices on AI, said that he hopes AI safety organizations from around the world find ways to collaborate. 'It would be best if the UK, US, China, Singapore, and other institutes come together,' he said. The conference also included closed-door meetings about AI safety policy issues. Speaking after he attended one such confab, Paul Triolo, a partner at the advisory firm DGA-Albright Stonebridge Group, told WIRED that the discussions had been productive, despite the noticeable absence of American leadership. With the US out of the picture, 'a coalition of major AI safety players, co-led by China, Singapore, the UK, and the EU, will now drive efforts to construct guardrails around frontier AI model development,' Triolo told WIRED. He added that it wasn't just the US government that was missing: Of all the major US AI labs, only Elon Musk's xAI sent employees to attend the WAIC forum. Many Western visitors were surprised to learn how much of the conversation about AI in China revolves around safety regulations. 'You could literally attend AI safety events nonstop in the last seven days. And that was not the case with some of the other global AI summits,' Brian Tse, founder of the Beijing-based AI safety research institute Concordia AI, told me. Earlier this week, Concordia AI hosted a day-long safety forum in Shanghai with famous AI researchers like Stuart Russel and Yoshua Bengio. Switching Positions Comparing China's AI blueprint with Trump's action plan, it appears the two countries have switched positions. When Chinese companies first began developing advanced AI models, many observers thought they would be held back by censorship requirements imposed by the government. Now, US leaders say they want to ensure homegrown AI models 'pursue objective truth,' an endeavor that, as my colleague Steven Levy wrote in last week's Backchannel newsletter, is 'a blatant exercise in top-down ideological bias.' China's AI action plan, meanwhile, reads like a globalist manifesto: It recommends that the United Nations help lead international AI efforts and suggests governments have an important role to play in regulating the technology. Although their governments are very different, when it comes to AI safety, people in China and the US are worried about many of the same things: model hallucinations, discrimination, existential risks, cybersecurity vulnerabilities, etc. Because the US and China are developing frontier AI models 'trained on the same architecture and using the same methods of scaling laws, the types of societal impact and the risks they pose are very, very similar,' says Tse. That also means academic research on AI safety is converging in the two countries, including in areas like scalable oversight (how humans can monitor AI models with other AI models) and the development of interoperable safety testing standards. But Chinese and American leaders have demonstrated they have very different attitudes toward these issues. On one hand, the Trump administration recently tried and failed to put a 10-year moratorium on passing new state-level AI regulations. On the other hand, Chinese officials, including even Xi Jinping himself, are increasingly speaking out about the importance of putting guardrails on AI. Beijing has also been busy drafting domestic standards and rules for the technology, some of which are already in effect. As Trump goes rogue with unorthodox and inconsistent policies, the Chinese government increasingly looks like the adult in the room. With its new AI action plan, Beijing is trying to seize the moment and send the world a message: If you want leadership on this world-changing innovation, look here. Charm Offensive I don't know how effective China's charm offensive will be in the end, but the global retreat of the US does feel like a once-in-a-century opportunity for Beijing to spread its influence, especially at a moment when every country is looking for role models to help them make sense of AI risks and the best ways to manage them. But there's one thing I'm not sure about: How eager will China's domestic AI industry be to embrace this heightened focus on safety? While the Chinese government and academic circles have significantly ramped up their AI safety efforts, industry has so far seemed less enthusiastic—just like in the West. Chinese AI labs disclose less information about their AI safety efforts than their Western counterparts do, according to a recent report published by Concordia AI. Of the 13 frontier AI developers in China the report analyzed, only three produced details about safety assessments in their research publications. Will told me that several tech entrepreneurs he spoke to at WAIC said they were worried about AI risks such as hallucination, model bias, and criminal misuse. But when it came to AGI, many seemed optimistic that the technology will have positive impacts on their life, and they were less concerned about things like job loss or existential risks. Privately, Will says, some entrepreneurs admitted that addressing existential risks isn't as important to them as figuring out how to scale, make money, and beat the competition. But the clear signal from the Chinese government is that companies should be encouraged to tackle AI safety risks, and I wouldn't be surprised if many startups in the country change their tune. Triolo, of DGA-Albright Stonebridge Group, said he expected Chinese frontier research labs to begin publishing more cutting-edge safety work. Some WAIC attendees see China's focus on open source AI as a key part of the picture. 'As Chinese AI companies increasingly open-source powerful AIs, their American counterparts are pressured to do the same,' Bo Peng, a researcher who created the open source large language model RWKV, told WIRED. Peng envisions a future where different nations—including ones that do not always agree—work together on AI. 'A competitive landscape of multiple powerful open-source AIs is in the best interest of AI safety and humanity's future,' he explained. 'Because different AIs naturally embody different values and will keep each other in check.' This is an edition of Zeyi Yang and Louise Matsakis' Made in China newsletter . Read previous newsletters here.
