Most companies use AI agents to ship products faster. Australian startup Apate.ai sends them undercover to get scammed on purpose. Founded in 2024 from research at Macquarie University in Sydney, the company deploys thousands of AI agents that masquerade as innocent victims to bait fraudsters.
The agents answer scam calls, respond to phishing messages, follow malicious links and join social media groups. They adopt different ages, genders and accents, speaking multiple languages to keep scammers engaged long enough to extract useful intelligence: bank accounts, crypto wallets, phone numbers, malicious websites and details about the scams being run.
Apate says its fleet has so far wasted 17 years of scammers' time across 2.5 million conversations. Customers including banks, telecom companies, government agencies and utilities use the gathered intelligence to inform anti-fraud measures. Commonwealth Bank of Australia has seen a 76 percent drop in publicly reported scam losses, and TPG Telecom has diverted nearly 590,000 calls to the agents.
The startup, a Startup Battlefield 200 finalist at TechCrunch Disrupt, raised 8.15 million dollars in seed funding in August. Co-founder Brad Joffe says the 20-person company plans to open a London office and expand its presence in the United States. The company is named after the Greek goddess of deception.