Another serious, and related, threat is the ability of genAI to create and disseminate synthetic (fabricated or deepfake) content. This risk has grown as both the ability and accessibility of genAI have increased, as evidenced by a 223% spike in deepfake-related tool trading on dark web forums in the first quarter of 2024, compared to the same period in 2023.16 Plausible images, video and voices can be created with remarkable ease to impersonate familiar figures to induce fraudulent transactions or other behaviour. For example, a finance worker at a multinational firm was summoned on to a video call, ostensibly by his chief financial officer and other members of staff, and was instructed to transfer $25 million to an account controlled by fraudsters.17 As is often the case with consumers who are duped by deepfakes of family members, the finance worker did not suspect that the chief financial officer and other colleagues on the call were computer generated and part of an elaborate scam. It doesn’t take much imagination to appreciate how incidents such as this could negatively impact financial markets and the global economy. Although the above risks, and others, have been exacerbated by AI, the technology is also being used to detect and/or prevent threats. To an increasing degree, AI is providing: –Authentication technology: Uses digital watermarks or metadata that are embedded in new content at the time of creation to help prove its authenticity.18 –Detection technology: Scours a vast landscape of activity to identify potential threats. It is also able to act, autonomously in some cases, to nullify detected threats. For example, it can recognize fake content without needing to compare it to the original,19 and it can swiftly examine the code within an application to determine whether its purpose is benign or malicious.20 Another serious, and related, threat is the ability of genAI to create and disseminate synthetic (fabricated or deepfake) content. Artificial Intelligence in Financial Services 16

Artificial Intelligence in Financial Services 2025