AI scams are fleecing the Irish public

Voice cloning, deepfake videos, and the use of fake identities are the top offenders for duping the public.

AI technology has been used to impersonate banks, family members and even well-known public figures, raising concerns amongst compliance professionals.

Among the top 3 scams identified by the Compliance Institute Scams Survey, there are impersonation scams (70%), phishing and smishing (50%), and AI-generated social media and advertising scams (45%).

Impersonation scams include voice cloning, deepfake video, and fake identity use. Phishing and smishing are text message scams that impersonate banks, companies, or government bodies.

As for social media and advertising scams, examples range from fake celebrity endorsements to fraudulent influencer content.

Recent research from the Central Bank of Ireland found that more than one in three adults in Ireland have experienced fraud, with almost two-thirds losing money.

Phone network Three Ireland has said recently that it blocked more than 26 million suspected scam calls and intercepted over 455,000 fraudulent text messages in 2025 alone. 

A recent report from the Irish Internet Hotline identified more than 200 fake websites set up to target Irish consumers last year, with confirmed financial scams up 52% on the previous year.

The Compliance Institute survey also examined how scams are affecting Irish financial organisations directly.

Half of the participants said their organisation had not been affected by a scam in the last year, whilst the other half reported many impacts, such as incurring high costs from fraud prevention, having to support affected customers, facing fraud-related complaints, or having clients’ data compromised.

“Though half of those we asked said they hadn’t been directly impacted by scams this year, the reality is that scams are now a live, day-to-day cost for almost every financial service organisation, whether that's in direct financial terms, extra compliance workload, or the time and resources spent supporting customers who've been targeted,” Kavanagh concluded.

Research released by the Compliance Institute - a professional body for compliance professionals in Ireland- shows results from a survey of 125 compliance professionals, who consider AI impersonations a very real danger.