AI Vishing: What It Is and How to Stop It

In early 2025, a multinational firm lost nearly $25 million after an employee received a voicemail from what sounded like their CEO, authorizing an immediate fund transfer. The voice was a perfect match. However, it turns out that it wasn’t their CEO at all.

This incident is an example of AI vishing (voice phishing) in action, one of the fastest-rising threats in cybersecurity today. In order to bypass digital defenses and trigger real-world damage, AI vishing exploits our most human vulnerability: trust in a familiar voice.

In this article, we’ll break down how AI voice spoofing works, why it’s escalating so quickly, and the concrete steps organizations can take to protect their teams from this new era of deception.

What is AI vishing? 

AI vishing uses artificial intelligence to recreate someone’s voice from just a few seconds of audio, such as a YouTube clip, podcast, or recorded meeting. They’ll call or leave a message that sounds like a colleague or boss and ask you to transfer money, share credentials, or approve something urgent.

Traditional vishing was often clumsy, with bad accents, robotic recordings, or generic threats that were easy to spot. Today’s scammers use off-the-shelf voice cloning software that can build a convincing fake in minutes. 

A 2024 study by researchers at UC Berkeley found that participants mistook an AI-generated voice for the real person 80% of the time, and correctly identified synthetic voices as fake only 60% of the time. 

AI vishing calls are showing up everywhere, from fake “bank fraud alerts” to CEO frauds where scammers pose as company executives. Group-IB reports that AI-powered voice fraud attempts jumped 194% in 2024. Global losses tied to synthetic voice scams could reach $40 billion by 2027.

AI vishing is effective because it exploits something we instinctively trust (a familiar voice) and turns it into a weapon.

Why AI vishing is so dangerous 

AI has supercharged traditional vishing, making voice scams far harder to detect. Here are the reasons why AI vishing is so dangerous now: 

• Uncanny realism: Cloned voices can now sound almost identical to the real person, mimicking their tone, accent, and rhythm. When an attacker pretends to be a trusted colleague or loved one, their familiar voice alone may be enough to convince someone of their credibility.
• Smarter targeting: Attackers no longer rely on generic scripts. AI tools scrape public data to build personalized stories, mentioning internal projects, meeting details, or even recent company updates. A cloned CEO asking about a “vendor payment from last week” feels authentic enough to override doubt.
• Scale and accessibility: With off-the-shelf tools, scammers can launch thousands of calls in minutes. The rise of vishing-as-a-service (VaaS) now lets even unskilled criminals rent AI voice engines and caller ID spoofing infrastructure, expanding the threat far beyond expert hackers.
• Real-world impact: Deepfake voice scams have already resulted in significant financial losses worldwide. These include fraudulent wire transfers, “grandparent scams” (vishing attacks targeting seniors), and AI-powered executive impersonation attacks that exploit trust at the highest levels of business.
• Emotionally adaptive delivery: AI models can adjust pitch, pace, and word choice in real time to sound calm, urgent, or reassuring depending on the target’s reactions. Unlike human scammers, AI doesn’t get nervous, make mistakes, or miss emotional cues. Instead, it listens, learns, and mirrors tone with precision that beats natural human intuition.

AI vishing thrives because it attacks human instinct, not technology. It doesn’t need to hack systems, as it simply requires you to believe a familiar voice.

The anatomy of an AI vishing attack

AI vishing converts a few seconds of public audio into a convincing voice that can manipulate people to take action. Here’s a step-by-step breakdown of a typical AI vishing attack and how it overlaps with broader phishing tactics that use artificial intelligence to deceive victims. 

1. Voice capture from public sources

Attackers pull tiny clips from public sources like clips from webinars, YouTube talks, LinkedIn videos, podcasts, and recorded meetings. AI models need only a few seconds of source material to produce convincing-sounding audio, making everyone on a video call a potential target.

2. Voice cloning with AI

Once attackers have captured even a few seconds of someone’s speech, they can feed it into an AI voice-cloning model to recreate that person’s tone, pitch, and pacing. Tools like OpenVoice and Resemble AI make this fast and accessible, generating a believable clone in minutes.

After cloning the voice, scammers connect it to a TTS (text-to-speech) engine, which instantly “speaks” whatever text the attacker types in that cloned voice. That means the fake caller can respond live, making the conversation feel authentic without having to pre-record anything.

3. Crafting the persona and the pretext

A cloned voice alone doesn’t fool anyone. The power lies in the story around it. Attackers research their targets online, scraping details from LinkedIn, press releases, and social media to build a credible scenario. Then they pair those facts with a time-sensitive pretext: an “urgent vendor payment,” a “payroll error,” or a “security issue that needs immediate access.”

This mix of a familiar voice and a believable story triggers trust and urgency, which are two instincts that disrupt critical thinking. This blend of voice cloning and social engineering mirrors how AI phishing campaigns operate, exploiting personalization, speed, and scale to bypass human skepticism.

Modern awareness-training tools like Adaptive Security’s phishing and vishing simulations let teams hear and analyze these kinds of calls safely, so employees can recognize emotional cues and slow down before responding.

4. Delivery method

Once the attacker has a cloned voice and a believable script, they use a reliable way to get it into a victim’s hands. That’s where delivery methods come in, each chosen to maximize reach, reduce traceability, and create pressure to compel the victim to act quickly under duress.

Here’s how those delivery tactics typically work:

• VoIP and mass-call platforms: Attackers use internet telephony (VoIP) providers or commercial mass-calling services to place thousands of calls cheaply. These platforms make it easy to automate calls or drop pre-recorded messages at scale.
• Caller-ID spoofing: To make a call appear trustworthy, fraudsters often spoof the number so it displays as that of a colleague, the company switchboard, or a known vendor. Seeing a familiar number lowers suspicion and increases the chance that someone acts on a fraudulent request.
• Live calls vs. voicemail drops: Some attacks are live (an AI responds in real time), while others leave a convincing voicemail asking for urgent action. Voicemail drops are useful when targets aren’t immediately reachable or can be pressured later.
• Voicemail bombs/IVR abuse: “Voicemail bombing” floods a target with multiple messages to create a sense of emergency. Attackers can also exploit interactive voice response (IVR) systems to route calls or harvest responses, making detection harder.
• Vishing-as-a-service (VaaS): The whole stack of services needed for a successful vishing attack, including voice cloning, calling infrastructure, and spoofing, is available for rent. That means even low-skill criminals can buy a turnkey campaign and target dozens or thousands of victims in minutes.

In practice, this might look like a finance team receiving a calm voicemail from the “CFO,” referencing a real vendor and PO number pulled from a recent public filing and urging an immediate transfer to avoid delays. The caller ID matches the CFO’s office. Under time pressure, the junior accountant prepares the transfer before the secondary sign-off is obtained. By the time someone questions it, the funds are long gone.

Recognizing these signs early can make all the difference. Watch for red flags like unfamiliar urgency, requests to bypass normal approval steps, demands for credentials or quick payments, or a voice that sounds almost right but slightly off in tone or phrasing. 

When in doubt, pause and verify the call’s authenticity through a separate, trusted channel. Always require written or dual approval for high-value transactions, and report any suspicious calls immediately.

Reinforcing these habits takes practice. Adaptive Security simulates real AI-voice attacks to help teams practice these exact scenarios. The aim is to help employees build habits like verifying caller credentials before making abrupt decisions that might endanger the company.

How to protect employees against AI vishing and voice spoofing 

Organizations taking a stand against AI vishing and voice spoofing employ strategies that emphasize vigilance among employees, ultimately strengthening the human firewall.

Invest in next-generation security awareness training

Generic training modules can’t prepare employees for the realism of AI voice scams. Teams need hands-on, adaptive training that demonstrates what these attacks sound and feel like in real-life scenarios, not just slides or quizzes.

For example, a training session might include playing two quick voicemail clips, one from a real executive and another generated by AI. Employees are asked to spot the fake, and most can’t. The exercise then guides them through what they missed: the subtle urgency, slightly off-pacing, or phrasing that doesn’t align with the executive’s usual tone.

That’s where next-generation security awareness training platforms like Adaptive Security help. The platform simulates real vishing attempts using synthetic voices, personalized pretexts, and timed decision-making. 

Employees practice verifying requests under pressure, reporting suspicious calls, and following escalation protocols. Over time, they build instinct, which teaches employees when to pause and confirm instead of reacting immediately and parting with sensitive data under pressure.

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Build robust defensive strategies

Education alone isn’t enough. Every organization should have clear verification processes in place for sensitive requests, particularly those involving payments or confidential data.

Here are some defensive strategies to adopt:

• Always confirm wire transfers or urgent requests through a secondary channel (e.g., in-person, Slack, or a verified number).
• Use “safe words” or internal security questions for high-risk actions.
• Maintain an incident response plan specific to AI-driven phishing and vishing.

Foster a culture of vigilant skepticism 

Encourage a workplace culture where employees feel empowered to question requests, regardless of their source. Employees should be encouraged to pause and verify before acting hastily on demands related to money or data.

Prompt reporting of any suspicious calls to the IT or security team helps prevent attacks and alerts others to ongoing vishing campaigns.

Adaptive can help protect your org against AI vishing 

AI vishing is a mainstream security threat, not a niche scam, so detection alone won’t save you. With voice cloning tools now accessible to anyone, attackers can impersonate executives, vendors, or even family members with unnerving accuracy. Every employee, from leadership to support staff, is a potential target.

That’s why protection now depends on awareness, verification habits, and consistent practice under realistic pressure. Organizations that treat training as a one-time checkbox leave gaps wide open. Those that simulate real AI-voice attacks build instinct and resilience across their teams.

Adaptive Security helps bridge that gap. Here’s what leadership actually cares about and what Adaptive delivers:

• Cut phishing & vishing errors: Ongoing simulations reduce risky clicks and compliance mistakes across teams.
• Speed up reporting: Employees recognize and escalate suspicious calls faster, helping security teams act in time.
• Get executive-ready insights: View progress, participation, and response trends in clear, board-level reports.

With interactive simulations, personalized scenarios, and real-time decision training, Adaptive helps teams develop the skills to identify even the most convincing deepfake calls.

AI vishing thrives because it sounds human. Adaptive Security helps your people think and act smarter under pressure.

Wondering how convincing a cloned voice scam could be? Experience a safe, simulated deepfake call with Adaptive and see where your process breaks; then fix it. Request a demo today.

Frequently asked questions about AI vishing

What’s the difference between vishing and AI vishing? 

Traditional vishing relies on scammers using their own voice or a voice recording to deceive victims. AI vishing uses cloned, synthetic voices to impersonate real people on a vishing call, and it’s often deployed as part of broader phishing attacks. 

These AI tools can copy tone, accent, and phrasing so well that the voice sounds real. This makes AI vishing far harder to detect and much easier to scale since a single attacker can run thousands of convincing calls in minutes.

Why do people fall for vishing so easily? 

AI vishing exploits humans’ inherent trust, emotional responses, and cognitive biases. Threat actors exploit emotional triggers like fear (“the deadline’s today”), urgency (“we’ll lose the contract”), or authority (“I’m calling from the CEO’s office”). AI makes this worse by removing the obvious giveaways like robotic tone, accent slips, or unnatural pacing. 

What’s a real-world example of AI vishing? 

In 2024, a Hong Kong firm reportedly lost $25 million after fraudsters used deepfake video and voice to impersonate senior executives during a live meeting, convincing a finance employee to authorize transfers. Similar types of scams and social engineering attacks have appeared in Europe and the U.S., often involving cloned voices of executives or family members. 

Can employees be trained to detect voice deepfakes?

Yes, but training must be practical. Exercises that simulate realistic generative AI fake voice calls can help employees develop keen instincts and intuitive habits. Teach people to never rely on caller ID or a single phone number, to hang up and verify via a known channel, and to treat unusual requests like potential malicious links or remote access demands with extra scrutiny. 

Better yet, introduce new-generation security awareness training programs, such as Adaptive Security, to recreate lifelike vishing scenarios using synthetic voices and timed decisions, teaching employees to spot such cyberattacks.