Apate

Apate deploys conversational AI bots at scale for scam prevention, disruption, and intelligence. It grew out of research at Macquarie University, where its founder and colleagues used machine learning and natural language processing to uncover the content of scam calls. Its agents answer scam calls and messages, follow phishing links, join social media groups, and adopt different ages, genders, accents, and languages to keep scammers engaged long enough to learn something useful.

Apate's agents get scammers to reveal bank accounts, crypto wallets, phone numbers, malicious websites, and the brands they impersonate. Its customers are banks, telecom companies, government agencies, and utilities. It approaches scammers directly to gather information before a victim is harmed, rather than blocking numbers or monitoring transactions after the fact.