Apate uses undercover AI agents to gather scam intelligence

Australian startup Apate.ai deploys AI agents that pose as potential victims to engage scammers and gather information for banks, telecom companies, government agencies and utilities. Founded in 2024, the company grew from research at Macquarie University in Sydney.

The agents respond to calls, messages and emails, follow phishing links and enter social media groups. Apate says its agents have so far occupied scammers for 17 years across 2.5 million conversations. They seek details such as bank accounts, crypto wallets, phone numbers, malicious websites and the brands being impersonated.

The FBI received more than 22,000 complaints involving AI-related crimes in 2025, resulting in about $893 million in losses. More than $632 million of that came from investment scams, according to the source article.

Apate co-founder Brad Joffe told TechCrunch that the company uses frontier and fine-tuned models, trained on scam conversations and Macquarie research. Customers can task agents with finding specific information. Joffe said TPG Telecom diverted nearly 590,000 calls to Apate agents, Commonwealth Bank of Australia saw a 76% drop in publicly reported scam losses, and an unnamed Australian bank used agents to disrupt 22 scam campaigns.

Apate raised $8.15 million in seed funding in August. Joffe said the 20-person company has raised just under $10 million in total and plans to use the latest funding for product development and international expansion.