OpenAI’s Sam Altman warns of AI voice fraud crisis in banking

By: The Associated Press Posted: Last Modified:

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WASHINGTON (AP) — OpenAI CEO Sam Altman warned the financial industry of a “significant impending fraud crisis” because of the ability of artificial intelligence tools to impersonate a person's voice to bypass security checks and move money.

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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 22/07/2025 (450 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

WASHINGTON (AP) — OpenAI CEO Sam Altman warned the financial industry of a “significant impending fraud crisis” because of the ability of artificial intelligence tools to impersonate a person’s voice to bypass security checks and move money.

Altman spoke at a Federal Reserve conference Tuesday in Washington.

“A thing that terrifies me is apparently there are still some financial institutions that will accept the voiceprint as authentication,” Altman said. “That is a crazy thing to still be doing. AI has fully defeated that.”

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman speaks during a discussion at the Federal Reserve Integrated Review of the Capital Framework for Large Banks Conference at the Federal Reserve in Washington, Tuesday, July 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman speaks during a discussion at the Federal Reserve Integrated Review of the Capital Framework for Large Banks Conference at the Federal Reserve in Washington, Tuesday, July 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

Voiceprinting as an identification for wealthy bank clients grew popular more than a decade ago, with customers typically asked to utter a challenge phrase into the phone to access their accounts.

But now AI voice clones, and eventually video clones, can impersonate people in a way that Altman said is increasingly “indistinguishable from reality” and will require new methods for verification.

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

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