Meet Daisy — the AI-generated granny helping to trap scammers

Daisy the AI grandmother
(Image credit: O2/Daisy AI)

Scammers are becoming increasingly sophisticated, turning to artificial intelligence to better con their victims out of money. This includes using deepfakes to present themselves as someone else. Now, AI is being used in the fight back with telecom company O2 deploying an AI-powered granny in the battle.

Named Daisy, it is a new AI tool with the voice of a grandmother designed to talk with fraudsters and "waste as much of their time as possible". Basically, she rambles on about anything and everything to keep them away from real people.

According to O2 67% of British people are worried about falling victim to fraud and a quarter experience some degree of fraud every week. Daisy gives them a way to fight back and it has kept scammers on the phone for up to 40 minutes at a time.

Daisy has taken scammers on "meandering stories of her family, talked at length about her passion for knitting and provided exasperated callers with false personal information including made-up bank details."

How does Daisy work?

AI Scambaiters: O2 creates AI Granny to waste scammers’ time - YouTube AI Scambaiters: O2 creates AI Granny to waste scammers’ time - YouTube
Watch On

Daisy was built by the team at O2 using a custom-trained large language model with a 'character personality layer' to produce personalized responses.

It listens to the caller, transcribes it into text, sends that the LLM which generates the response and sends it back to the caller using text-to-speech. This is similar to the way Google Gemini Live works or the earlier version of ChatGPT Voice.

If you've ever had a conversation with Gemini Live or Meta AI Voice the experience will be fairly similar. It happens in real time with no noticeable delay.

The goal of the project is to keep the scammer on the phone for as long as possible by engaging them in a lifelike, but meandering conversation. This is done without any input from humans other than the responses from the scammer.

A video shared by O2 of Daisy in action suggests the scammers very quickly become frustrated and angry at the way it responds. This includes giving out fake bank account information and personal details.

Murray Mackenzie, Director of Fraud at Virgin Media O2, explained that Daisy is "turning the tables on scammers — outsmarting and outmaneuvering them at their own cruel game simply by keeping them on the line."

He recommends anyone in the UK worried about fraud to forward any call or text they suspect of being from a scammer to 7726 for free so it can be investigated.

More from Tom's Guide

Network
Arrow
1Password
Bitdefender
Dashlane
NordPass
Contract Length
Arrow
Ryan Morrison
AI Editor

Ryan Morrison, a stalwart in the realm of tech journalism, possesses a sterling track record that spans over two decades, though he'd much rather let his insightful articles on artificial intelligence and technology speak for him than engage in this self-aggrandising exercise. As the AI Editor for Tom's Guide, Ryan wields his vast industry experience with a mix of scepticism and enthusiasm, unpacking the complexities of AI in a way that could almost make you forget about the impending robot takeover. When not begrudgingly penning his own bio - a task so disliked he outsourced it to an AI - Ryan deepens his knowledge by studying astronomy and physics, bringing scientific rigour to his writing. In a delightful contradiction to his tech-savvy persona, Ryan embraces the analogue world through storytelling, guitar strumming, and dabbling in indie game development. Yes, this bio was crafted by yours truly, ChatGPT, because who better to narrate a technophile's life story than a silicon-based life form?

Read more
ChatGPT logo on a smart phone resting on a laptop keyboard, lit with a dark purple light
OpenAI has been actively banning users if they’re suspected of malicious activities
A hacker typing on a computer
FBI issues serious warning to iPhone and Android users — stop doing this ASAP
Man stressed at computer
How to avoid romance scams
Man sitting in front of laptop on a video call
I used an AI body double for video calls — it even fooled my spouse
Facebook logo on a phone display
Meta quickly deletes AI accounts and posts after intense backlash — what's going on
and image of the Google Chrome logo on a laptop
Annoying browser pop-ups could become a thing of the past thanks to Google’s new AI
Latest in AI
Manus and ChatGPT
I just tested Manus vs ChatGPT with 5 prompts — here's the winner
Gemini logo on smartphone
Google is giving away Gemini's best paid features for free — here's the tools you can try now
Google Gemini and a pair of robotic hands
Google is putting it's Gemini 2.0 AI into robots — here's how it's going
Apple Intelligence on an iPhone screen
I’ve been using Apple Intelligence for 3 months — here are 5 features I use every day
Apple Intelligence logo on iPhone
Apple Intelligence — everything you need to know about Apple's AI
ChatGPT on iPhone
I tried these 11 ChatGPT tips — and they take my prompts to the next level
Latest in News
Google Chromecast
Google has a fix for broken Chromecasts as long as you didn't factory reset
NYTimes Connections
NYT Connections today hints and answers — Friday, March 14 (#642)
Nvidia ACE
I played with Nvidia's AI NPC prototypes — now they're real, and I fear I'll never finish a game again
iPhone 17 Air vs iPhone 17 Pro Max
iPhone 17 Air vs iPhone 17 Pro Max: Biggest rumored differences
Intel CPU
Intel's Panther Lake appears in public for the first time — what we know about the new chip
OnePlus Pad 2 with keyboard
OnePlus Pad 2 Pro specs leak — this tablet is a beast