Fraudsters are ahead of mobile operators when it comes to artificial intelligence (AI), according to a new report from Hiya.
Hiya’s State of the Call 2026 report shows that one quarter of Americans say they have received a deepfake voice call in the past year, with nearly another quarter (24%) indicating they couldn’t tell if a call was a deep fake or not.
The problem of deepfakes is complicated by the large number (an average of just under 10 a week) of unwanted calls, whether they are deepfakes or not.
According to Hiya, the number of unwanted calls has been growing at a 16% compound annual rate since 2023.
The problem extends beyond the U.S. borders. Across all markets Hiya surveyed, consumers receive an average of 7.4 unwanted calls per week (also up at a 16% CAGR). The problem of unwanted calls is the worst in France, while British consumers suffer the steepest financial losses per scam victim.
“When consumers tell us that scammers are beating mobile networks two-to-one, that has to be a wake-up call for the entire telecom industry,” Alex Algard, Hiya CEO and founder, said in a prepared statement.
“Scammers are weaponizing AI to clone voices and steal from vulnerable people, and the bad guys are simply moving faster than legacy network defenses. We cannot expect everyday people to outsmart artificial intelligence on their own. We are in an arms race where scammers are using AI as a weapon, which means operators have to use AI as a shield. The only path forward is embedding state-of-the-art AI directly into the telecom infrastructure to strictly authenticate callers before the phone ever rings.”