The emergence of deepfakes and video impersonation scams (often powered by AI voice cloning) recently escalated the risk of voice fraud for both individuals and businesses. Research from Hiya, conducted with OnePoll in July, found a significant portion of the U.S. and U.K. populations – 27% and 18%, respectively – reported falling victim to AI deepfake voice scams in the past three months.
Highlighting the severity of the problem, Arup, the engineering firm behind the Sydney Opera House, suffered a $25 million loss in May due to a deepfake scam. In this incident, an employee was tricked into transferring funds after receiving an AI-generated video call appearing to originate from company executives.
The increasing sophistication of generative artificial intellience is making it easier for scammers to convincingly mimic voices, with the elderly and young often targeted as particularly vulnerable groups.
Taking what it learned from its research, Hiya knew it needed a way to detect AI-generated deepfake voices in real time.
Therefore, Hiya acquired Loccus.ai.
Loccus.ai is a startup building deep learning solutions to add layers of trust and safety to voice communications. Their flagship product aims to solve the misuse of AI-generated voices aimed at committing fraud, spam and misinformation. Loccus.ai helps developers of voice communications platforms, enterprises and carriers worldwide in their phone and digital voice interactions.
The addition of Loccus.ai to Hiya combines Hiya’s Adaptive AI fraud prevention system with AI voice detection to provide businesses and carriers with a complete fraud call protection suite. The versatile solution supports multiple languages, formats and platforms, including video recordings and live calls across all devices.
“The acquisition of Loccus.ai creates a tremendous opportunity for us to offer the most complete and intelligent voice protection solution,” said Hiya CEO and founder Alex Algard. “The Loccus.ai team are experts in AI-generated voice detection. By bringing together the power of the Hiya Voice Security Platform with Loccus.ai’s deepfake voice detection, our solutions are ready for the era of GenAI.”
Businesses and carriers can immediately integrate Hiya AI Voice Detection, which includes Loccus.ai’s deepfake voice detection technology, into services and applications to enhance consumer trust and security. It can then be used to identify deepfake audio in personal communications apps, news and social media content, video conferencing and contact center platforms, and more.
“We are thrilled to be joining Hiya in the fight against voice spam and fraud,” said Loccus.ai CEO and founder Manel Terraza. “Joining Hiya allows us to help more customers leverage Loccus.ai voice detection with the industry-leading voice security offering, as we scale to 500-plus million global users across the Hiya network.”
Hiya AI Voice Detection is available today for businesses and carriers.
Edited by
Alex Passett
