OpenAI CEO Sam Altman didn’t mince words when speaking at a U.S. Federal Reserve event: “A thing that terrifies me is apparently there are still some financial institutions that will accept the voiceprint as authentication,” he said. “That is a crazy thing to still be doing. AI has fully defeated that,” as reported by AP News.
That statement isn’t a forecast. It’s a status update.
With generative AI now capable of mimicking voices, faces and mannerisms in real time, the kinds of fraud once imagined in spy movies are being commoditized and deployed against finance teams. Altman’s fear? That banks and businesses remain unprepared for how fast this has gone mainstream.
Deepfakes are already undermining trust in business payments
Altman was talking about consumer banking, but the risk applies more acutely to corporate finance. Many businesses still rely on verbal confirmations, FaceTime calls or Zoom check-ins to verify vendors or approve last-minute payment changes.
But deepfake technology can now clone a voice with just a few seconds of audio. With AI models trained on public data or breached emails, cybercriminals can craft convincing impersonations of executives, vendors or partners. Deepfakes generated with modern AI tools can bypass speaker recognition systems in simulated attacks with 95–97% success rates, according to a 2025 study.
For finance teams, that makes social engineering exponentially harder to detect — and harder to defend against using traditional trust cues.
Finance leaders need new assumptions
The deepfake threat is systemic, not episodic. The right response isn’t to add more approvals or overburden staff with guesswork. It’s to reframe the question entirely: Can the person or entity requesting this payment be independently verified?
That’s not something a voice or a selfie can prove. It’s something your systems need to validate.
Where Eftsure fits in
Eftsure provides independent, real-time verification of vendors and bank account details — before money moves.
- Vendor verification ensures payees are who they claim to be
- Bank account validation checks destination details against a verified source of truth
- Continuous monitoring flags changes, anomalies or payment behaviors that don’t match history
These aren’t cosmetic controls. They’re engineered for a world where trust is easy to fake and hard to prove.
Eftsure doesn’t replace cybersecurity software or staff vigilance. It reinforces the most vulnerable moment in any business transaction: the point of payment.
Deepfakes aren’t a future risk. They’re a current disruptor of identity, authority and digital trust. Sam Altman’s warning should spark action, not anxiety. For finance leaders, the move isn’t to fight AI with guesswork. It’s to build systems that don’t rely on trust alone.
That’s why Eftsure exists.
Book a demo to see how Eftsure verifies every payment before it leaves your business.
