FTC commissioner warns AI is amplifying impersonation scams, outlines enforcement, research and education steps

Melissa Holyoak, Commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission, told a Hinckley Institute of Politics forum at the University of Utah that artificial intelligence is making impersonation and other frauds more sophisticated and urged consumers to report scams to the FTC.

Holyoak said the FTC's mission combines consumer protection and antitrust work across three bureaus and that the agency is using enforcement, private‑sector innovation, research and public education to address AI‑enabled fraud. "Even though the name has the word trade in it, we do not deal with tariffs at all. What we deal with are unfair trade practices," she said, describing the FTC's focus on deception, misrepresentation and anticompetitive conduct.

The commissioner described several AI‑amplified schemes and offered concrete examples. She recounted a case in which a corporate finance officer in Hong Kong authorized a $25 million transfer after receiving real‑time, AI‑generated impersonations of colleagues and executives. She also described international romance‑scam cases in which deepfake audio and video and chatbot interactions persuaded victims to send large sums; Holyoak said one French victim sent $800,000 after receiving AI‑generated content.

Holyoak presented state and national reporting figures to illustrate scale: "Utahns alone have reported losing more than $28,000,000 in 2024," and "just this year, Utah has already reported more than $18,000,000" to fraud schemes, she said. She emphasized those reports are likely an undercount because many victims do not report incidents.

To combat these harms, Holyoak outlined four FTC strategies. First, the agency is pursuing law enforcement under Section 5 of the FTC Act and has finalized an impersonation rule that allows the FTC to seek monetary relief and other remedies against scammers who spoof government seals, business logos or falsely imply government or corporate affiliation. Holyoak said the rule was used in actions against student‑debt relief and phantom‑debt schemes and supported takedowns of websites impersonating the FTC.

Second, the FTC is encouraging private innovation. Holyoak described a prize competition held under the America COMPETES Act that produced multiple techniques to detect or prevent harmful voice cloning, including algorithms to distinguish synthetic audio, methods to protect online audio samples from scraping, and liveness detection for real‑time deepfakes.

Third, the FTC is using its 6(b) authority to study companies and markets. Holyoak described prior 6(b) orders directed at social platforms about paid advertising and two recent studies: an AI partnerships and investments review and a 6(b) study sent in the month before the forum to seven consumer‑facing chatbot operators to seek information about children's use of chatbots, age‑based protections, data collection and parental controls.

Fourth, the commission is amplifying consumer education. Holyoak demonstrated FTC videos and a "contact sheet" consumers can prefill with bank and trusted contacts to use when a suspected scam occurs, and urged an approach she summarized as "stop, drop, and call" (stop the interaction, end contact, then call a trusted bank or friend). She also explained how reports to the FTC feed Consumer Sentinel, an intelligence database used by domestic and international law enforcement.

Holyoak described other agency actions: an administrative action against a company called Workado for overstating the accuracy of AI‑detection software, and a $10 million settlement in a separate Disney matter that required improved controls for children's content on YouTube (she described that settlement as part of the agency's COPPA enforcement work). She said the FTC has also used domain‑registrar cooperation to disable impersonating websites.

In audience questions, Holyoak addressed cross‑border enforcement, age restrictions on chatbots, COPPA (the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act) and broader privacy tradeoffs. She said the U.S. lacks a single federal privacy law but that the FTC uses Section 5 to pursue privacy harms where consumers cannot avoid them. On age limits, she said companies may impose their own restrictions and that courts have previously considered related First Amendment and age‑restriction issues. She also noted the FTC's interest in educational outreach to young people and the practical limits of the agency's outreach budget.

Holyoak briefly mentioned ongoing litigation over presidential removal of FTC commissioners, saying the Supreme Court would hear argument in December and that she is a named defendant; she declined further comment on the case.

Holyoak closed by stressing the FTC's dual goals: to "promote innovation in AI" while remaining vigilant against bad actors who use the technology to commit fraud.

The forum included short videos and a question‑and‑answer session with students and closed with a campus civic engagement fair announcement.