Detecting electronic fraud is no longer as easy as it used to be. Thanks to artificial intelligence technologies, fraudsters can create professional-looking online stores, imitate the voices of family members and friends, and produce fake videos that are difficult to distinguish from the truth.
According to the British BBC, with the development of these methods, warnings of falling victim to fraud targeting money and personal data increase, which forces consumers to be careful and verify the sources of the transaction before taking any step.
How do scammers exploit artificial intelligence?
The National Trading Standards Authority in Britain, concerned with consumer protection and market regulation, has warned of the growing use of artificial intelligence in fraudulent operations, and has prepared for the first time a warning list that monitors the most prominent tools and methods used by fraudsters to exploit victims.
These methods include the following:
Fake online stores
Fraudsters create new shopping sites or copy existing ones, using artificial intelligence to produce professional designs in a short time and at a low cost; But the buyer may never receive his order, or he may receive a cheap, mass-produced product from countries like China, instead of the promised good.
Imitating fake voices and videos
Fraudsters can clone the voices of family members or friends, produce fake videos impersonating themselves, and then contact the victim claiming there is an emergency and the need to transfer money urgently.
Elaborate fraudulent messages
Artificial intelligence allows the creation of emails, text messages, and social media posts that appear personal, convincing, free of spelling and grammatical errors, and request updating data, confirming a person’s identity, or accessing a specific link, with the ability to send them to large numbers of people simultaneously.
Practical steps to protect your money and data:
The National Trading Standards Authority recommends following a set of measures to reduce the risk of becoming a victim of AI-assisted fraud, the most prominent of which are:
Do not send money to unknown people
Avoid transferring money or sharing personal and financial information with people you have not met face-to-face, no matter how compelling or moving their stories may seem.
Check stores before purchasing
Find the store's address and make sure it actually exists, and review the information about the companies and their official communications. The quality of the site design or the images displayed does not make it sufficient evidence of credibility.
Check job advertisements
Don't treat a job ad as real just because it's professionally written. Contact the company directly via the official contact information, to ensure the accuracy of the advertisement before sending your documents or personal data.
Absolute lack of confidence in sound and image
If a family member or friend calls you asking for money because of an emergency, don't rush to respond. Try to verify his identity through an independent means of communication, such as calling another number he owns, or communicating with another trusted person to confirm the incident.
Handle personal messages with caution
Don't click on suspicious links, and don't share passwords or banking data in response to a message asking to update your information or confirm your identity, even if the message appears to be directed to you personally.
Beware of rush and psychological pressure
One of the most prominent signs that require attention is the scammer's attempt to push the victim to make an immediate decision, whether by claiming the existence of an emergency, or threatening to lose the opportunity to purchase, job, or service.
Fraudsters take advantage of urgency, to prevent people from thinking and verifying information before transferring money or sharing their data.
Therefore, the competent authorities are advised to stop and think before paying or disclosing any personal information or responding to an unexpected request, with the need to verify the identity of the other party and the validity of the information from independent sources.
American researchers said that automated chat applications supported by artificial intelligence provide “parental feelings” that many people currently lack in their actual lives.
According to the results of interviews conducted by researchers with a number of parents, their children have become convinced that there is a real person inside the computer or smartphone.
Artificial intelligence experts warn of “the continuing blurring of the line between chatbots, humans, and other devices.”
Sherry Turkle, a psychologist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), said that the use of artificial intelligence affects “basic processes in childhood, which are the distinction between humans and inanimate objects,” according to the German News Agency.
While this problem is arguably more serious in children, adults “are not much better off with heavy reliance on chatbots,” according to an MIT press release announcing Terkel’s book, “Artificial Intimacy: Who We Will Be When We Talk to Machines.”
“Once a person enters into a relationship with a robot, he or she begins to believe that the robot is a living being, that it cares about it, that it even loves it,” Terkel says.
Terkel believes that such relationships entail an “existential” risk. It is formed despite the fact that artificial intelligence, in its form and expressions, appears closer to machines than to humans.
According to researchers from the Universities of Zurich in Switzerland and Amsterdam in the Netherlands, even the most advanced chat software remains “incapable of accurately replicating the full spectrum of human linguistic expression.”
In a research paper published in the US journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences this month, the Swiss-Dutch research team indicated that texts generated by artificial intelligence can be distinguished “systematically from the content of human communication.”
Based on a study of social media messages and posts, the researchers reported that AI “consistently had difficulty mimicking the emotional dimension and intended meaning of user messages.”
At the same time, previous research has indicated a relationship between the use of artificial intelligence and a possible decline in mental health. Last year, a team from the University of Oxford and London College warned of the emergence of a “feedback loop” in which chatbots promote a type of mental disorder known as psychosis in users.
The WhatsApp application has expanded the scope of its calling service by launching a new feature that allows users to invite anyone to a voice or video call via a direct link, even if the other party does not have a WhatsApp account.
The new feature, called “Guest Calling,” was officially announced on October 14, 2026, and allows the creation of a link to the call and sharing it with others, while the guest can open the link directly through the computer browser, enter his name, and then request to join the call without the need to create a WhatsApp account.
Consent of the call owner before entering
Despite the ease of joining, the guest cannot enter the call directly. He must first go to a waiting room, provided that the call owner agrees to his entry.
The host can also remove the guest from the call at any time, in a move aimed at giving the user more control over who joins via shared links.
WhatsApp also took into account the privacy aspect, as guests cannot view the phone numbers of other participants, send them messages, or add new people to the call directly.
Group calls of up to 32 people
Guest Calls supports one-on-one conversations and group calls with up to 32 people.
WhatsApp confirms that calls are free and do not impose a time limit on the call, in addition to continuing to protect them with end-to-end encryption, which is the security feature mainly used in application calls.
The guest is not limited to just watching or hearing the call, as he can use a number of basic tools, including sharing the computer screen, raising his hand to participate, and interacting using emojis.
How does the feature work?
A WhatsApp user can create the link by going to the “Calls” section, then pressing the “+” sign, and choosing to create a call link, before sharing it with the people to be invited.
Creating links is still limited to people who have a WhatsApp account, while guests can join without an account after the call owner’s approval.
WhatsApp documents explain that each call link created has a different address that is difficult to guess. Unused links expire after 30 days, and the company can cancel some links for security or privacy reasons.
Greater competition for meeting services
The call links themselves are not new in WhatsApp, but the most notable change is dropping the requirement to have an account on the application for the invited person.
Thus, WhatsApp calls become closer in their use to online meeting services such as Zoom and Google Meet, as it is sufficient to send a link to the participant instead of requiring him to be added as a contact or have an account on the service.
The company also plans to add integration with Google Calendar and Outlook later in 2026, so that the user can create a WhatsApp call link directly from the calendar invitation, and attendees can join whether they have a WhatsApp account or not.
The update represents an important step in expanding the use of WhatsApp outside the scope of traditional calls between friends and family, to become a more suitable option for business meetings, lessons, interviews, and calls with people who the user does not want to share his phone number with.
