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Three ways AI will threaten the bond of customer trust in 2024, and what you can do about it

By Christophe Van de Weyer, CEO, Telesign

The year 2023 will be remembered as one of revolutionary change for the technology sector, thanks to the popularization of generative AI. But we are only beginning to see how AI will transform the way business is conducted, and 2024 will see even more transformation. Unfortunately, as AI is increasingly adopted, its potential misuse - by fraudsters and even accidentally by your own employees - poses trust-breaking threats to your business. Here are three predictions, from me and two of my colleagues, about the risks posed by AI misuse in 2024, and what you can do about it.

Fraudsters' use of GenAI will force companies to adapt

While Generative AI can be a positive tool for businesses, wrongdoers are using it to scale up their attacks - and inflicting tremendous damage. As CNBC reports, "since the fourth quarter of 2022, there's been a 1,265% increase in malicious phishing emails, and a 967% rise in credential phishing...cybercriminals are leveraging generative artificial intelligence tools such as ChatGPT to help write sophisticated, targeted business email compromise (BEC) and other phishing messages."

Here's why this is a rising problem: one of the ways people are trained to identify phishing mails - which trick people into handing over valuable credentials - is poor syntax and grammar. Phishing scams routinely cross national and language boundaries. This has traditionally created problems for scammers who try to pose as your local bank, for example, when they don't even live in your country or speak the language. Generative AI, unfortunately, solves these problems for the criminal minded by writing the mail for them, in the language they choose, and in the style of a mail from a bank, to continue with this example. In this way, the promise of AI - to augment human work, scale, it, and make it more impactful - turns out to do the same for criminals.

In 2024, I believe the ability of consumers to easily decipher legitimate from fraudulent emails and texts will nearly erase. This will lead to a general consensus that strategic actions need to be urgently taken to bolster defenses. But businesses don't need to wait to act. A focus on account integrity is key, as phishing and other attacks are often used to take over accounts and execute more significant thefts. At Telesign, we recommend working with vendors who use machine learning to fast-learn how fraudsters behave. This leads to our second prediction.

Telesign CTO Mark Hydar: Companies will move toward continuous, risk-based authentication, powered by machine learning

In 2024, given the rising threat of fraud, including those accentuated by GenAI, Telesign's CTO, Mark Hydar believes that companies will start to deploy a zero-trust approach to every action in the authentication journey. Friction needs to be kept to a minimum, to keep the user experience pleasing, so the process will be increasingly silent for the customer, occurring largely in the background.

"To accomplish this for your organization, work with vendors that provide machine learning (ML) capable of modeling standard end-user behaviors using your internal data, phone data, biometrics, and more," Mark explains. "A well-crafted ML model will learn from this data and recommend adaptive, risk-based decisions that allow AI to automatically block or flag transactions - or help them sail through - based on a business's specified risk posture."

To put it more simply: ML learns customer patterns and then builds a plan, based on an organization's preferences, to keep both consumers and the company safe. The ultimate goal is to build and maintain trust with end-users. As Telesign's Chief Marketing Officer Kristi Melani often says, trust takes years to build, seconds to break, and forever to repair. This brings us to our final prediction.

Telesign CMO Kristi Melani: Companies will face pressure to be transparent about GenAI-written content

In 2023, several media outlets were criticized for publishing articles created by generative AI, in some cases without telling readers. Kristi points out that these controversies foment mistrust and fuel fears of AI stealing jobs. What is the lesson for companies outside of media? She predicts that, in the coming year, similar controversies are likely to focus on corporate content.

"Many companies are, in fact, using generative AI to produce content without necessarily labelling it as such," she says. "Because there is a plethora of AI content detection tools, there is always a risk that a company will be called out."

Kristi warns marketers to get ahead of the problem and use AI in a trustworthy way. "Arguably, at least some of the controversy media outlets faced in 2023 about GenAI content could have been avoided or offset had media outlets clearly labeled the content as computer-generated," she adds. "If AI is used to create content, disclose it to avoid potential reputational damage."

Trust is a critical asset for companies, and once it's lost, it can be hard to earn back. Of course, most business leaders instinctively understand the importance of trust, but innovative new technologies can sometimes tempt our better judgment, which is a mistake. If you want to learn more about building trust with your customers, we publish an annual Telesign Trust Index, which reveals just how much trust matters in our digital world.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Christophe Van de Weyer, CEO, Telesign

Christophe Van de Weyer is the CEO of Telesign, which provides Continuous Trust to leading global enterprises by connecting, protecting, and defending their digital identities. Before joining Telesign, he held senior leadership positions at the Proximus Group, serving as Managing Director of its ICT Subsidiaries across Belgium, Luxembourg, and The Netherlands, as well as Chief Operating Officer of Proximus Enterprise Business Unit. Prior to Proximus, Christophe Van de Weyer spent almost 20 years at the global management consulting firm Bain & Company. During his tenure, he served as a partner for nine years and held various leadership roles within Bain's Telecom and Tech practice.