British telecom giant Virgin Media O2 recently launched 'Daisy', a revolutionary, human-like chatbot designed to combat scams. Designed to mimic the conversational style of a wise and witty grandmother, Daisy engages with fraudsters in real time, wasting their time and resources. According to Forbes, Daisy automates the practice of "scambaiting," a tactic where individuals pose as potential victims to tie up scammers' time, expose their tactics publicly, gather intelligence for law enforcement, and disrupt scammer devices' algorithms.

Daisy works by answering calls in real-time, mimicking human conversation to engage scammers, ultimately reducing the number of successful scams and protecting vulnerable consumers.  This not only wastes their time but also gathers valuable data for law enforcement, helping to disrupt scammer operations.

This AI-powered chatbot impersonates an older adult as elderly individuals are often targeted by scammers because they are perceived as less tech-savvy. Daisy's digital existence allows her to engage with scammers around the clock, uninterrupted by human needs like sleep or personal hygiene.

''While they're busy talking to me they can't be scamming you, and let's face it, dear, I've got all the time in the world,'' the bot says in the introductory video from O2. The video depicts Daisy as a photorealistic AI-generated woman with grey hair, glasses, and pearls, conversing on a retro pink landline.

Watch the video here:

The video also captures real-life exchanges between Daisy and frustrated scammers. As Daisy talks with the fraudsters, she avoids divulging sensitive information, such as bank accounts and credit card numbers. She instead steered the conversations toward mundane topics. As a result, scammers grow increasingly irritated as Daisy enthusiastically discusses her cat, Fluffy, or launches into lengthy tangents about her family, knitting hobbies, or fake personal details. 

Notably, Daisy has a dedicated phone number strategically added to scammers' contact lists by O2's anti-fraud team. This clever setup enables Daisy to engage with fraudsters, utilising advanced AI technology to listen to callers transcribe their voice into text and respond convincingly using a custom large language model.

Daisy's personality is crafted to resemble a sweet British granny, thanks to a character "personality" layer. To perfect her authentic tone, London-based creative agency VCCP Faith drew inspiration from a staff member's grandmother, replicating her voice to create Daisy's believable persona.

"By tricking the criminals into thinking they were defrauding a real person and playing on scammers' biases about older people, Daisy has prevented them from targeting real victims and, most importantly, has exposed the common tactics used so customers can better protect themselves," O2 said in a statement.