OpenAI’s Sam Altman warns of AI voice fraud crisis in banking
Jul 22, 2025, 11:48 AM
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)
Credit: ASSOCIATED PRESS
(AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
WASHINGTON (AP) 鈥� OpenAI CEO Sam Altman warned the financial industry of a 鈥渟ignificant impending fraud crisis鈥� 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.
鈥淎 thing that terrifies me is apparently there are still some financial institutions that will accept the voiceprint as authentication,鈥� Altman said. 鈥淭hat is a crazy thing to still be doing. AI has fully defeated that.鈥�
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 鈥渋ndistinguishable from reality鈥� and will require new methods for verification.
鈥淭hat might be something we can think about partnering on,鈥� said Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman, the central bank鈥檚 top financial regulator, who was hosting the discussion with Altman.
