(Bloomberg) — Sweden's Truecaller AB, the developer of a caller ID and spam blocking app, is using technology to combat the growing number of criminals using artificial intelligence-generated voice clones to defraud phone users.
Scammers are cloning voices to target more and more companies, Chief Executive Officer Rishit Jhunjhunwala told Bloomberg News. For example, he has seen a fake version of a CEO's voice used to call the company's finance chief to request a large transfer. Fraudsters also pose as fake customers to enter companies' systems.
Easily accessible generative AI tools have made it easy for criminals to convincingly impersonate voices, putting more people at risk of falling for fraud. Truecaller scans callers' voices to detect whether they are computer-generated.
“Criminals are always one step ahead of us,” Jhunjhunwala said in his first major interview since becoming CEO earlier this month. “Emerging markets are all about phones these days, and that's where bad actors are turning their attention.”
The rise in digital crime coincides with a period of rapid growth in the number of app users, especially in India, Truecaller's largest market, accounting for around 70% of its revenue. The number of monthly active users worldwide surpassed 433 million last year and analysts expect revenues of about 1.85 billion Swedish crowns ($167 million) by 2024, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Key to the fight against voice cloning is CallHero Ltd., an Israeli company it bought in 2022 that specializes in cloud telephony. Jhunjhunwala said the company will continue to explore more AI acquisitions.
“2025 will be a pivotal point for AI adoption across the board in the business,” the CEO said, citing the use of large language models to detect calling patterns in the company's wealth of data as a key use of the technology.
Shares of Truecaller are up 21% so far this year, as analysts monitor the stock price against the company's prospects. On Tuesday, Carnegie Investment Bank reiterated its buy recommendation, saying new growth initiatives “have gone largely unnoticed due to sluggish end markets.” Shares closed down 13.1% in Stockholm.
Beyond AI, a big part of the strategy for the coming year will be monetization with the rollout this week of an improved app on iOS 18, Apple Inc.'s mobile phone operating system.
Although only 7% of the company's active users currently use iOS, Jhunjhunwala said he is confident that will change now that the company has opened up its ecosystem to developers like Truecaller. It means that the iOS app will detect any phone number, removing a significant disadvantage compared to Android users, a feature that Jhunjhunwala says the company has influenced.
“I think we were the biggest driver for Apple to make this change,” he said.
The app upgrade is particularly relevant to India, where Jhunjhunwala points to Apple's growth ambitions, which he says is “a great sign.”
The company is grappling with evolving data protection laws, including the Data Protection Act in India, which could pose a risk to the company. Truecaller has voluntarily implemented data protection practices globally that comply with strict European Union rules because, Jhunjhunwala said, it was “the right thing to do.”
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