The power of AI agents in tearing down fraud

By: Harsha Angeri, VP, Corporate Strategy & Head, AI Business, Subex December 18, 2024

Collected at: https://www.rcrwireless.com/20241218/uncategorized/ai-agents-fraud

As fraud methods continue to evolve and become increasingly rigid, these sophisticated and highly destructive cybercrimes — aimed at telecommunication providers — have brought about a fraud incident chasm. The growing gap between fraud methods and traditional fraud management solutions are leading to numerous incidents that are falling through the cracks. As bad actors continue to raise the bar on fraud schemes that are increasingly complex and gravely destructive, telcos are finding themselves playing a constant game of catch up. That is until now… enter generative artificial intelligence (gen AI) and AI agents.

Gen AI, and more specifically, AI agents offer a robust defence against today’s fraud challenges, enabling telcos to rise above the ever-mounting threat of fraudulent activities. AI agents are autonomous software that can perceive their environment and make rational decisions on how to respond. They leverage AI to sense their environment, learn and make decisions — mimicking the capabilities of humans. This is accomplished using a variety of AI methods, such as natural language processing (NLP), machine learning (ML), computer vision, image recognition and much more. For example, by leveraging ML algorithms, AI agents can identify patterns and anomalies that might elude human analysts, making them an integral component within a telco’s fraud defence arsenal.

Build a strong fraud defence with AI agents

Increasingly, AI agents are playing a crucial role in fraud detection and prevention. They operate continuously, monitor transactions in real time and adapt to new threats as they arise. Using sensors and other data sources, AI agents can perceive and sense their surroundings, enabling them to quickly process information and make independent decisions. They can react to situations, as well as changing circumstances, providing them with the unique ability to modify their behaviour for effective fraud responses. AI agents can also anticipate the future and use goal setting and planning to take corrective actions. Finally, AI agents can interact with other AI agents, as well as human staff, enabling them to accomplish a variety of high-level tasks such as communicate intentions, negotiate terms and collaborate for the best outcomes. All of this, however, calls for a certain degree of autonomy, as well as interdependency, of which AI agents possess.

Given their ability to operate quickly, autonomously and with great proficiency, AI agents are helping telcos mount a stronger defence in identifying and tearing down fraud. Here are five ways AI agents are helping to identify and curtail fraudulent activities.

1. Scale: Scale to process large amounts of transaction data across numerous platforms, a feat that is impossible for humans.

Example: AI agents can review social network graphs and transactional links across complex and high-volume transactions to determine relationships and identify organised fraud rings and activities.

• Work: Work in real time to provide instant analytics, recommendations and actions — a critical requirement to reduce fraud run time.

Example: AI agents can flag suspicious transactions to human operators and immediately block them, minimising potential damage.

• Learn: Through adaptive learning, AI agents can predict fraud incidents and identify suspicious behaviour before traditional alerts are sounded.

Example: Especially useful in cases of novel fraudulent tactics, AI agents can recognise patterns in anomalies and historical data, allowing them to identify subtle cues that indicate fraud.

• Flexible and customisable: AI agents can simulate fraudulent scenarios, thereby reinforcing a telco’s defence.

Example: With the agility to interact with different operating environments, AI agents enable telcos to widen their fraud coverage across traditional and new threats on both existing and next-gen platforms.

• Integrate: Their ability to easily integrate with other response mechanisms enhances team effort in tearing down fraud and minimising potential damage.

Example: AI agents can augment the role of fraud teams, freeing them to concentrate on other aspects of fraud, increasing efficiency and effectiveness.

Given AI agents widespread functionality, there’s an AI agent for every need.  Built on large language models (LLMs), the variety of AI agent types include:

• Reactive agents that operate using predefined rules.
• Model-based reflex agents that use an ML model to make decisions.
• Goal-based agents that focus on specific goals.
• Utility-based agents that consider the usefulness of an outcome and aim to maximise.
• Learning agents that adapt and learn to improve performance.
• Collaborative agents that are designed for teamwork and collaboration.
• Autonomous agents that can operate without human intervention.
• Interactive agents that use NLP and other AI methods to communicate with humans.
• Embodied agents that have a physical presence.
• Cognitive agents that possess reasoning and problem-solving skills.

Recent years have seen an explosion in the number of telecom fraud incidents, corresponding revenue loss and customer dissatisfaction. Given a stated business goal, AI agents operate continuously, monitoring transactions in real time and adapting to unique threats as they arise, enabling telcos to thwart fraudulent activities and mount a strong defence.