AI & Digital Skills · Digital Skills

How to spot AI scams and deepfakes

Scammers use AI to write convincing messages and imitate voices. A few habits protect you far better than trying to spot every fake.

Learn

Step by step

  1. Pause on urgency. Pressure to act immediately — pay now, share a code — is the biggest warning sign.
  2. Verify through another channel. Call back on a number you already have, not one in the message.
  3. Never share codes. Banks and legitimate services do not ask for one-time passcodes or full passwords.
  4. Agree a family or team check. A shared question or process for money requests defeats voice imitation.

Worked example

Before and after

Before: A voice note that sounds like your manager asks you to pay a new supplier £4,800 today.

After: You call your manager on their usual number. They made no such request, and you report the message.

Why it works: Checking through a separate known channel works even when the fake is very convincing.

Try it

Practice tasks

  1. A text from 'your bank' asks you to confirm a code you just received. What do you do?
  2. A video shows a celebrity promoting an investment app. What should you check?

Key terms and next lesson

DeepfakeRealistic fake video, audio or images of real people, made with AI.Multimodal AIAI that can work with more than one type of input or output, such as text, images, audio and video.Generative AIAI that creates new content — text, images, audio, video or code — in response to an instruction.Next: How to write a better AI promptMost disappointing AI answers come from vague instructions. This short lesson shows a simple checklist you can use with any chat assistant.

Last reviewed: 25 September 2026