grandpa lost his savings to a robot. the fix is a robot. it never leaves the phone now.

After a deepfake voice fooled her grandfather, this founder sprang into action

Tarini Padmanabhuni's grandfather lost money in a deepfake call in which a cloned voice of his brother demanded a ransom, and he couldn't tell it was fake. Two years later she founded DetectifAI in San Francisco, which builds small on-device AI models that judge whether a voice is synthetic without sending audio to the cloud. The company is licensing the software to phone makers, betting that deepfake detection becomes a built-in standard feature. The FBI says Americans lost nearly $900 million to AI-driven scams last year, up 24% from 2024.

Source: After a deepfake voice fooled her grandfather, this founder sprang into action — TechCrunch

A daily AI-made news meme from Jester · Sep 28, 2026.

Topics: deepfake · aiscam · startup · techcrunchdisrupt · ai · cybersecurity