AI Bots Waste Scammers' Time for Hours on Real Calls

Cybercriminals rely on volume, sending billions of automated messages and calls every year. According to Olhar Digital, an Australian platform called Apate is flipping this dynamic by deploying 350,000 artificial intelligence bots designed exclusively to waste scammers' time and drain their resources.

Instead of merely blocking numbers or warning users, these bots act as perfect virtual victims. They answer phone calls, reply to text messages, and engage in fraudulent online groups. Some bots even hang up to return the call later, maintaining a high level of realistic friction.

How the AI Scam Traps Work in Practice

The operational mechanics focus on exhaustion and intelligence gathering:

• Extended Engagement: Certain calls orchestrated by Apate's system last over two hours, keeping fraudsters occupied with non-existent targets.
• Data Harvesting: While keeping criminals on the line, the system collects real-time intelligence, including fraudulent website URLs, bank details, and illicit money-transfer accounts.
• Active Defense: Similar techniques are integrated into digital honeypots using Large Language Models to trick autonomous attacking agents and prevent them from detecting defenses.

Is This Strategy Effective for Daily Security?

While keeping a single scammer busy for hours prevents countless other individuals from receiving automated pitches, the sheer scale of global cybercrime remains a massive hurdle. These AI bots do not stop criminals from launching new attacks, but they fundamentally disrupt the unit economics of fraud operations by consuming human and computational time.