New York warns of $8B in AI investment scams for 2025

Fraudsters have a new favorite tool, and it is not a Nigerian prince email. It is a flawlessly rendered deepfake of a celebrity telling you this crypto platform is the real deal. New York’s Department of State just issued a formal consumer alert warning that AI-powered investment scams drained more than $8 billion from American victims in 2025 alone. The numbers come from Federal Trade Commission data, which recorded 144,041 consumers reporting investment-related losses last year. That represents a 38% jump from 2024, making investment fraud the single most costly fraud category the FTC tracks. What AI is actually doing to the fraud playbook The median individual loss hit $10,560, higher than any other major fraud category the FTC measures. Scammers no longer need a believable script and a burner phone. They now deploy AI tools to clone voices, fabricate celebrity endorsements, and produce high-production video ads that would not look out of place on a legitimate financial platform’s website. These fake campaigns spread across social media feeds, dating apps, and email inboxes. They funnel targets toward counterfeit trading platforms designed to show impressive paper gains, keeping...