After a deepfake voice fooled her grandfather, this founder sprang into action
After her grandfather was scammed by a deepfake of his brother's voice, Tarini Padmanabhuni founded DetectifAI, a San Francisco startup building AI models small enough to run directly on smartphones and flag fake voices in real time, and it's now one of the companies competing in Startup Battlefield at TechCrunch Disrupt.
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A founder launched a startup to detect deepfake voices after her grandfather fell victim to an AI-generated scam call that impersonated a family member and demanded ransom. The company's technology runs directly on smartphones rather than in cloud servers, aiming to instantly verify whether voices are artificial before audio leaves the device. According to the FBI, Americans lost close to $900 million to AI-driven scams in the past year, with older adults losing significantly more than younger groups. The startup is targeting phone manufacturers to build deepfake detection into device operating systems as a built-in feature.
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