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Virgin Media O2, a British telecom company, has introduced Daisy, an AI chatbot designed to resemble a kind grandmother, to tackle scammers.
Daisy looks like a sweet granny with grey hair and glasses. (Photo Credits: YouTube)
Phone call and text message scams are increasingly becoming a major concern, making it tougher than ever to distinguish between genuine and fake messages. To tackle this issue, British telecom company Virgin Media O2 has come up with an innovative solution. Meet Daisy—a human-like chatbot crafted to outwit scammers. Modelled after a friendly, chatty grandmother, Daisy keeps scammers engaged in lengthy conversations, effectively wasting their time and protecting potential victims.
In a video shared by the company on YouTube, Daisy is shown as a photorealistic elderly woman with grey hair, glasses and a landline phone. Daisy looks sweet but doesn’t go on her looks as she is sharp enough to disrupt scammers’ plans. Instead of providing sensitive details, she distracts them with amusing stories about her cat Fluffy, her love for knitting or family members. At times, she even shares fake bank details to confuse them further.
One scammer, frustrated after an hour, said, “It’s nearly been an hour!” Daisy responded cheerfully, “Gosh, how time flies.”
“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,” Daisy says in the video.
According to Forbes, Daisy automates the practice of “scambaiting,” which usually involves individuals pretending to be victims to waste scammers’ time. It also helps uncover their tricks, gather useful details for law enforcement and even disrupt their devices.
Unlike human scam baiters, who need breaks for daily activities like eating and sleeping, Daisy can always be on the phone. She can talk to fraudsters nonstop and keep them busy in pointless conversations that ultimately leave them frustrated. Daisy uses advanced AI systems that can listen, convert speech to text and then use a custom large language model to respond. A character “personality” layer was crafted in such way so that it resembles a sweet British granny. To make Daisy sound authentic, the London-based creative agency, VCCP Faith, took inspiration from the grandmother of one of their team members while developing her voice.
Virgin Media O2’s anti-fraud team has added Daisy’s number to scammer contact lists.
“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 as quoted by Forbes.
Many social media users lauded the initiative by the company aimed at tackling scamming incidents.
One commenter wrote, “One of the BEST uses of AI I have seen. This needs much more advertisement.”
Another added, “Yo, whoever thought about this to improve the company image has to be promoted or deserves a raise at least. This is gold.”
“This is the best usage of AI so far!” someone remarked.
