British telecom operator deploys ‘AI Granny’ to battle scammers

British telecom operator Virgin Media O2 has launched ‘Daisy’, a human-like ‘AI Granny’ designed to talk to scammers and waste as much of their time as possible.

According to Virgin Media O2’s press release, ‘Daisy’ is indistinguishable from a real person thanks to the use of the latest cutting-edge AI technology and training. She is able to interact with fraudsters in real-time without any interference from its creators.

‘Daisy’ is made up of various AI models which all work together to listen and respond to fraudulent calls. A first language model transcribes the incoming audio, a second model can generate personalized responses, and a third model converts those responses back into voice messages via an AI voice.

To fool scammers, ‘Daisy’ is designed to sound like an old grandma and is capable of keeping swindlers on hold for 40 minutes.

“We’re committed to playing our part in stopping the scammers, investing in everything from firewall technology to block out scam texts to AI-powered spam call detection to keep our customers safe,” says Murray Mackenzie, Director of Fraud at Virgin Media O2.

He states that ‘Daisy’ is also designed to be a reminder of how persuasive someone on the other end of the phone can be.

Daisy was developed in collaboration with software developer Jim Browning. This YouTuber from Northern Ireland has been making videos about scambaiting for years. Scambaiting is a practice where people try to trick scammers into wasting their time. It is not clear what Browning’s exact role was during the development of ‘Daisy’.

O2 recommends British users to continue to report suspicious or dodgy text messages and phone calls so they can continue to be intercepted. The British telecom operator says it was able to intercept and block 89 million fraudulent text messages in 2023.