Tired of phone call scammers? This AI-powered "granny" Daisy can take care of it

We’ve seen all the things that AI can do. It can help you with summarizing documents and even engage with you in a life-like conversation. And now, this “AI granny” Daisy can take care of phone call scammers for you.

O2, one of the UK’s largest mobile network operators, launched the AI-powered Daisy to combat phone scammers by engaging them in long, lifelike, and tiresome conversations.

Developed using advanced AI and scambaiting techniques from YouTube’s Jim Browning, this proud grandma can answer fraud calls autonomously and hold scammers on the line for up to 40 minutes. O2 describes its tool as a “lifelike AI Granny” who is “completely indistinguishable from a real person.”

Daisy can tell “meandering stories” about her family, and her passion for knitting, and offers fake personal information, including invented bank details. While it can’t be interacted with by the public—unless you’re a scammer, of course—Daisy is meant to reduce the time scammers have to target potential victims, particularly vulnerable seniors.

Phone scams are a growing concern in the UK with 67% of Brits expressing concern about being targeted by fraudsters. The network provider has previously blocked over 250 million scam calls in the past 12 months.

It’s also a growing concern in the US. Truecaller, a popular app to detect phone scams, said in its annual spam & scam report that over 56.2 million US adults were impacted by such things in 2023 especially with AI-driven scam tactics, resulting in financial losses of around $25.4 billion.