UK mobile operator Virgin Media O2 creates Daisy, an AI-generated “scambaiter” tool that mimics the voice of an elderly woman to waste scammers' time
In an ingenious move to combat the UK's growing fraud epidemic, O2 has unveiled their newest team member - an AI-powered “Head of Scammer Relations” named Daisy. … Seth Ruden : One of the running themes in my career was to turn the tables and mess with the bad actors, it's been one of my favorite strategies … Peter Barclay : I've spent a long time considering the ethical use of AI, and I don't advocate using AI to impersonate others.... Neither do I agree with using AI to trick someone. … Jeff Geerling : Okay, maybe there is _one_ good use for AI. https://lnkd.in/... James Lusher : With more than 70% of Brits saying they would like to get their own back on scammers, today we're introducing our new ‘Head of Scammer Relations’... DAIsy. … Lance Spitzner : Many of us have heard of and are concerned about cyber attackers using AI driven voice cloning for Vishing attacks. … Forums: r/videos : Telecommunications services provider O2 creates AI Granny to waste scammers' time r/Cyberpunk : Phone network employs AI “grandmother” to waste scammers' time with meandering conversations r/technews : Phone network employs AI “grandmother” to waste scammers' time with meandering conversations | Scambaiting, Abe Simpson-style Msmash / Slashdot : Virgin Media O2 Deploys AI Decoy To Waste Scammers' Time
Context & Ripple Effects
Daisy extends a defensive use of conversational AI already seen in Apate, a bot built to hold scam callers on the line and gather intelligence. It arrives amid related coverage showing that cloned voices can undermine voice-verification systems, including a reported bypass of a UK bank's voice checks.
Virgin Media O2's approach matters because it puts an AI agent directly into the scam-call interaction, while its own ethical reservations underscore the tension between deception as a fraud defense and the risks of normalizing impersonation tools.
First-order effects
- Virgin Media O2 gains a public-facing scam-disruption tool that can occupy callers targeting presumed vulnerable victims rather than requiring a human to engage them.
- Daisy gives scammers an artificial conversational target, though the reported ethical concerns make its use a test of how clearly defensive impersonation can be bounded.
Second-order effects
- The launch raises the bar for anti-fraud teams: telecoms and banks can consider automated engagement alongside blocking and verification, particularly as consumer-grade voice cloning demonstrated its ability to defeat voice biometrics.
- Scammers may respond by shortening calls or improving screening for automated conversations, reducing the effectiveness of time-wasting tactics unless they evolve with attacker behavior.
Third-order effects
- If such tools prove operationally useful, fraud defense may shift from passive filtering toward AI agents that interact with suspected attackers and generate intelligence from those exchanges.
- The same capability will sharpen governance questions around consent, disclosure, impersonation, and the acceptable limits of defensive deception; the outcome depends on safeguards and evidence of harm reduction.
The trend: AI is becoming an active fraud-defense layer, with conversational agents used to absorb, delay, and learn from attacks that generative AI also helps enable.