Apate.ai
by Apate.ai
AI voice and text agents that pose as scam victims to pull fraud intelligence out of live scam operations
Apate.ai is a scam-disruption platform that diverts scam calls and messages to AI agents posing as potential victims, then extracts the bank accounts, crypto wallets, phone numbers and scripts the scammers reveal. It is built for banks, telecom carriers and government agencies that want fraud intelligence before customers lose money.
Apate.ai is an Australian cyber-intelligence company spun out of Macquarie University research led by founder and CEO Professor Dali Kaafar. Its product puts adversarial conversational agents in front of scammers. Apate Voice answers scam calls that a carrier or bank diverts to it over SIP/RTP, Apate Text engages scam messages on channels such as WhatsApp, Telegram and SMS, and Apate Insights delivers the extracted intelligence through dashboards and alerts. Each agent runs a distinct persona, varied by age, gender, accent and language, and tries to keep the scammer talking long enough to reveal bank accounts, crypto wallets, phone numbers, phishing sites, impersonated brands and scam methods. Customers can assign agents missions, such as obtaining a specific mule account number. TechCrunch reported on October 14, 2026 that the system runs on a mix of frontier models and Apate's own fine-tuned models, has held about 2.5 million conversations and handles tens of thousands of scammer interactions a day. Commonwealth Bank of Australia deployed the bots on dedicated numbers in 2025, and TPG Telecom has diverted nearly 590,000 calls to them. Apate raised a A$11.4 million (about US$8.15 million) seed round led by Lobby Capital on August 31, 2026, bringing total funding to just under US$10 million, and is incorporating in Delaware and opening a London office. The company says it deploys on premises, in private cloud or hybrid, on AWS, Azure, Google Cloud, Oracle and Alibaba Cloud.
Heads of fraud at retail banks and network security leads at telecom carriers who already flag scam traffic and want intelligence from it, not just a block.
Scam calls and messages are turned into a live feed of mule accounts, crypto wallets and scam scripts that fraud teams can act on before customers pay out.
At a Glance
- Category
- Governance & Security
- Pricing
- Contact for pricing
- Target Market
- CISOs, Heads of Fraud, Telecom Security Teams, Government Agencies
- Deployment
- Hybrid, Multi-cloud
- Founded
- 2024
- Headquarters
- Sydney, Australia
- Team Size
- 11-50
Key Features
- ✓Apate Voice
AI voice agents take diverted scam calls over SIP/RTP and keep scammers talking, which wastes their time and draws out operational details.
- ✓Apate Text
Text agents engage scam messages on WhatsApp, Telegram and SMS and can join scam forums and investment groups under fabricated identities.
- ✓Persona variation
Agents vary by age, gender, accent, language and nationality, so scammers meet a range of believable victims instead of one recognisable bot.
- ✓Mission tasking
Customers can direct agents to obtain a specific item, such as a bank account number or crypto wallet address, from a scam campaign.
- ✓Apate Insights
A portal with dashboards and alerts that turns each conversation into structured intelligence on accounts, wallets, sites, impersonated brands and scam methods.
- ✓Flexible deployment
Runs on premises, in private cloud or hybrid across major clouds, which matters for banks and carriers that cannot send call audio to a shared SaaS.
Capabilities
Use Cases
- •Carrier scam call diversion
A telecom routes calls its network flags as high-risk scams to Apate agents; TPG Telecom has diverted nearly 590,000 calls this way.
- •Mule account discovery
A bank's fraud team uses agents on dedicated decoy numbers to collect the receiving accounts scammers give out, then blocks those accounts quickly.
- •Campaign disruption
Outbound agents engage active scam campaigns directly; TechCrunch reports an unnamed Australian bank used them to disrupt 22 campaigns.
- •Threat intelligence sharing
Intelligence gathered by the agents is shared across telcos, tech firms and government agencies, as Commonwealth Bank does with its Apate feed.
Ideal For
Best For
- ✓Telecom carriers that already score inbound calls as likely scams and need somewhere useful to send them
- ✓Retail bank fraud teams hunting mule accounts and crypto wallets used in impersonation and investment scams
- ✓Government and law-enforcement agencies collecting intelligence on organised scam operations
- ✓Crypto exchanges and payment firms that want early warning on wallets and accounts being used by scam networks
Not Ideal For
- ✗Organisations outside banking, telecom or government that have no scam call or message traffic to divert into the agents
- ✗Buyers who need published pricing or a self-serve trial; Apate sells custom engagements only
- ✗Teams that need a long vendor track record or certifications such as SOC 2 or ISO 27001; the company is about 20 people and its site lists none
Deployment
Market Analysis
Pros
- ✓Named production deployments at Commonwealth Bank of Australia and TPG Telecom
- ✓Produces intelligence before a loss occurs, where most fraud tooling reacts afterwards
- ✓Runs on premises or in private cloud, which suits regulated banks and carriers
- ✓Works across voice and text channels with configurable agent missions
Cons
- ✗Headline results such as diverted calls and reduced losses come from the company and its partners; Stockhead's 2025 profile notes no independent verification
- ✗Small, young vendor of about 20 people with a customer base concentrated in Australia, so global support is still being built
- ✗No published pricing and no named security certifications such as SOC 2 or ISO 27001 on its site
- ✗Useful only where scam traffic can be diverted to it, which needs carrier or bank integration work
Pricing
Enterprise
Contact for pricing
- ✓Apate Voice and Apate Text agents
- ✓Apate Insights dashboards and alerts
- ✓On-premises, private cloud or hybrid deployment
Apate publishes no prices. Its site describes pricing only as customisable and flexible, so expect a sales-led contract scoped to call and message volume, channels and deployment model.
Security & Compliance
Connect
Sources
This page was written from 5 sources, 4 on domains other than apate.ai.
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