WASHINGTON (AP) – Openai CEO Sam Altman has warned the financial industry about a “big imminent fraud crisis” as artificial intelligence tools have the ability to bypass security checks and move money by spoofing people’s voices.
Altman spoke at the Federal Reserve Conference in Washington on Tuesday.
“What scares me is obviously that there are still financial institutions that accept VoicePrint as certification,” says Altman. “It’s crazy that we’re still doing. The AI has completely beaten it.”
Voice printing as ID for clients of wealthy banks was popular over a decade ago, and customers were usually asked to speak challenge phrases on their phones to access their accounts.
But now, audio clones of AI, and ultimately video clones, may impersonate people in the way Altman said they “cannot distinguish it from reality”, and may need new ways to validate.
“It could be something we can think about partnering,” said Vice-Chairperson of Supervision at Michelle Bowman, the top financial regulator at the central bank that hosted the discussion with Altman.
Original issue: July 22, 2025, 4:36pm EDT
