What Is a Deepfake?
Detection by eye or ear alone is no longer reliable, and deepfakes are now used in everything from disinformation campaigns to targeted fraud, including impersonating executives in voice or video calls to authorize fraudulent transactions. Regulation is starting to catch up: recent updates to the EU AI Act specifically prohibit non-consensual synthetic intimate imagery.
Why It Matters
- Fraud is the sharpest business risk: executive voice or video impersonation used to authorize real financial transactions.
- Detection is no longer something a person can reliably do unaided, which pushes the burden toward process controls (verification steps) rather than just "look closely."
- Regulatory attention is increasing, meaning this is shifting from a reputational risk to a compliance one in some jurisdictions.
