Sam Altman Says AI Has ‘Defeated’ Bank Voice ID Protections

OpenAI’s CEO says the banking sector is facing a “significant impending fraud crisis.”

That’s because artificial intelligence (AI) has advanced to the point that it can impersonate someone’s voice to get around security protocols and move funds, Sam Altman said at a Tuesday (July 22) Federal Reserve conference in Washington.

“A thing that terrifies me is apparently there are still some financial institutions that will accept the voiceprint as authentication,” said Altman, whose comments were reported by the Associated Press (AP). “That is a crazy thing to still be doing. AI has fully defeated that.”

As the AP notes, voiceprinting as a method of identification for wealthier banking clients became popular more than a decade ago. These systems would normally ask customers to say a challenge phrase into their phones to get to their accounts.

“I am very nervous that we have an impending, significant, impending fraud crisis,” Altman said.

“Right now, it’s a voice call; soon it’s going to be a video or FaceTime that’s indistinguishable from reality,” he added, requiring new security measures.

“That might be something we can think about partnering on,” said Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman, the central bank’s chief financial regulator, who hosted the discussion with Altman.

The scenario Altman described happened in real life. In 2024, a finance worker in Hong Kong transferred $25 million to scammers following a video call with what appeared to be the company’s chief financial officer and other executives. In reality every participant on the call was a deepfake.

That defrauded business was just one among many, per research from the PYMNTS Intelligence April 2025 Invoice-to-Pay Automation Tracker® Series, “Rising Risk: Confronting Modern AP Fraud Threats.”

That report found that 90% of companies in the U.S. had been targeted by cyberfraud in 2024. Business email compromise attacks impacted 63% of companies, jumping 103% from the previous year.

“Still, the deepfake incident underscores a chilling reality,” PYMNTS wrote earlier this year. “Generative AI has transformed financial fraud, making it more sophisticated and harder to detect. While businesses harness its capabilities for efficiency, cybercriminals exploit it to craft convincing fraudulent schemes.”

At the same time, the report added, businesses are using AI to detect fraud, using machine learning to spot anomalies in transaction patterns and flag suspicious activities in real time. And by weaving AI into accounts payable processes, companies can automate invoice verification, cross-referencing details with existing records to spot inconsistencies.