Senators: “In recent years, global criminal networks have turned to AI to target more people with increasingly personalized and believable digital scams” 

WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Senators Maggie Hassan (D-NH), Ranking Member of the Joint Economic Committee, and Josh Hawley (R-MO) pressed six companies operating generative artificial intelligence (AI) models to step up efforts to prevent scammers from using their platforms. In requests to six major operators of generative AI platforms – OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, Google, Microsoft, xAI, and Perplexity AI – the Senators asked for answers about the steps the companies are taking to prevent scammers from using their services to steal from Americans.

As increasingly sophisticated AI platforms have enabled fraudsters to personalize and exponentially multiply scam attempts, scam losses in the U.S. have soared. The FBI recorded $16.6 billion in reported losses to suspected scams and other cybercrime in 2024 – up from $3.5 billion in 2019, a more than 370 percent increase over the last five years.

“In recent years, global criminal networks have turned to AI to target more people with increasingly personalized and believable digital scams, contributing to a booming scam economy that is now a larger illicit industry than the global drug trade,” wrote the Senators. “AI companies…have reportedly faced challenges in preventing the misuse of their technology. These urgent and complex challenges call for collaboration between the private and public sectors, and we want to work together to find solutions to protect Americans. 

With advancements in AI, scams are growing in sophistication, frequency, and impact. Generative AI allows scammers to quickly collect personal information on targets and send convincing and personalized emails, texts, and phone calls at an industrial scale. While many AI companies prohibit the use of their products to perpetrate fraud and scams, reporting has shown that the safeguards preventing users from misusing the technology are easy to get around.

The bipartisan request to AI companies is part of Senator Hassan’s ongoing comprehensive effort to combat scams. In recent months, Senator Hassan opened investigations into SpaceX and Match Group, pushing the companies to take steps to curtail the use of their tools or platforms by scammers.

Read Senators Hassan and Hawley’s letters to six AI companies here.