In the ongoing battle against telephone fraud, a new weapon has emerged: an AI-powered granny named Daisy. Developed by U.K. mobile network O2, Daisy’s primary mission is to tie up scammers with endless, mundane conversation, wasting their time and preventing them from targeting real victims.
The concept of phone scams has been around for years, but with the rise of AI, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for people to distinguish between real calls and fraudulent ones. These scams, often masquerading as urgent messages from banks, tech companies, or government agencies, can easily fool unsuspecting individuals into handing over sensitive information. However, O2 is flipping the script by deploying an AI that keeps these fraudsters occupied with boring conversations instead of letting them reach their targets.
Meet Daisy: The AI Granny
The AI bot, affectionately named Daisy, has been programmed to engage scammers with long-winded and irrelevant conversations about family, knitting, and entirely fabricated details—such as nonsensical stories about personal life and fake bank information. The goal is simple: waste the scammers’ time, making them spend valuable minutes on a call that yields no profit.
Daisy’s AI model is powered by a combination of sophisticated voice recognition and language processing systems, which allow her to listen and respond in a way that mimics human conversation. Developed with the assistance of Jim Browning, a YouTuber and expert in scambaiting (the art of wasting scammers’ time to prevent them from targeting others), Daisy is designed to keep scammers on the line for as long as possible.
While the project is a fun and innovative take on fighting fraud, it’s not something that the public can use themselves—yet. For this campaign, O2 cleverly got some of its own phone numbers added to the scammer call lists frequently used by fraudulent operators. This gave the company the opportunity to directly engage with scammers and put Daisy to work.
Wasting Scammers’ Time
The initiative was launched as part of International Fraud Awareness Week, highlighting O2’s commitment to raising awareness about phone scams. In one of the more notable statistics from the campaign, O2 claims that Daisy has managed to keep scammers on the line for as long as 40 minutes at a time. The longer Daisy can keep the fraudsters talking, the less time they have to go after real targets, which ultimately helps protect vulnerable individuals from falling victim to these deceptive schemes.
According to O2, the bot doesn’t just engage in chit-chat—it actively disrupts scammers’ operations by providing them with nothing useful, thus rendering their efforts ineffective. And, as anyone who’s ever dealt with a scam call knows, one of the most effective ways to deter these criminals is to simply make them feel like their time is being wasted. The longer they stay on the phone, the less time they have to make legitimate calls to other potential victims.
Why It Matters
Telephone scams are one of the most common forms of fraud, with criminals constantly adapting their tactics to appear more convincing. In the U.K. alone, millions of scam calls are made each year, and many of these attempts are directed at vulnerable people, such as the elderly or those who are less familiar with modern technology.
With the rise of AI technology, criminals can easily create convincing impersonations of banks, government bodies, and even family members, tricking victims into disclosing sensitive information. This is where Daisy’s effectiveness comes in. By tying up scammers for extended periods of time, Daisy not only prevents these criminals from successfully carrying out their schemes but also serves as a humorous and innovative example of how AI can be used to combat modern fraud.
While O2’s campaign may be more of a publicity stunt, it highlights the growing potential of artificial intelligence in cybersecurity. From automatically detecting suspicious activity to engaging with scammers in real-time, AI can play a crucial role in helping to protect consumers from fraud.
A Future of Smarter Fraud Prevention?
For now, Daisy remains a playful—and highly effective—solution to one of the most frustrating problems in the digital age. But as AI technology continues to evolve, it’s not hard to imagine a future where bots like Daisy could be more widely deployed, offering real-time protection for consumers, businesses, and organizations around the world.
While we wait for broader AI solutions to be implemented, it’s clear that O2’s “AI Granny” is a clever, if cheeky, way to raise awareness about fraud and offer a little bit of payback to the scammers who prey on unsuspecting individuals. After all, who better to outwit a scammer than an endless stream of grandmotherly stories?
