AI Scam Calls Hit Telcos: Syntelligence AI Tackles Deepfakes

AI deepfakes, while being known for their prolific creation on social media platforms like X, are not limited to visual content.

They can also be created through the manipulation of real voices, with one in four American consumers having received deepfake voice calls in twelve months.

This is according to a new survey of approximately 12,000 consumers by Hiya across the US, UK, Canada, France, Germany and Spain.

While receiving these calls can be panic-inducing, with the receiver feeling pushed to act quickly, the financial loss can be significant. Globally, telecom fraud losses reached US$41.82bn according to the Communications Fraud Control Association (CFCA) Fraud Loss Survey Report.

Syntelligence AI, founded by Deutsche Telekom AG, e&, Singtel Group, SK Telecom, Inc. and SoftBank Corp, is using AI training datasets made by the five telcos to target some of the biggest threats in telecommunications.

Tackling AI scams at network level

Syntelligence AI is targeting threats at network level, rather than on individual devices, starting with the 'Trust Platform'.

The tool addresses issues such as declining user trust in calls from unknown numbers and the effective screening of spam callers.

It also has a Security Shield platform, a real-time defense model which detects and blocks scam calls before they reach people.

Prateek Choudhary, CEO of Syntelligence AI, says: "The telecommunications industry is entering a new phase in user experience and operational efficiency, enabled by rapid advances in AI.

"It’s a significant moment which offers telecom companies a real opportunity to shape what comes next. Building AI-powered services that strengthen their role will deepen customer value and set a new standard for network experience for years to come."

Syntelligence AI at MWC 2026

At MWC Barcelona, Deutsche Telekom's Vice President, Jan Hofmann, and Syntelligence AI's CEO delivered a panel discussing how the Global Telco AI Alliance is rewriting the rules of network trust.

Prateek said: "We think that AI is the best way to actually solve the problem which is being made worse by AI.

"What we are doing here is creating a platform called the Trust Platform, which protects you from the first time the phone rings until the end of the call, the entire lifecycle of the call."

Prateek explained the four stages that the Trust Platform uses through AI assistance.

Explaining the first stage, he said: "Before the phone rings, the networks have a lot of information, we are leveraging that to determine whether or not the call is a scam or not – so what we call the scam risk assessment."

He later explains that telecoms use network signals to do this, including roaming status, traffic patterns (e.g. the number of people the phone number has called in the last 24 hours) and crowd intelligence.

"The second, when the call is ringing from an unknown number, a person can decide to send that call to an AI assistant. This is basically understanding the intent, understanding why a person is calling. It gathers all the information, summarises it, and lets the person know whether the call was a scam or not.

"If people do decide to take the call themselves, we monitor the call and see if it is evolving in to the scam call, and we give the right alerts to make people aware that the call could be a scam. Then we take the feedback."

In a LinkedIn post, Syntelligence AI stated: "By training proprietary AI models on telco-scale data, we are identifying intent before the phone even rings.

"We're moving from reactive filters to proactive intelligence."

As the AI call assistant solution is rolled out across telco networks, including the five which founded Syntelligence AI, networks will be more secure and less prone to voice call scams. 

The volume of AI deepfake voice call scams have risen at a compound annual rate of 16% since 2023, according to Hiya's survey. 

With scams leading to financial fraud or identity theft of all individuals, not just telcos, Syntelligence AI's technology has the potential to become a global solution for all.