Picture this: The finance team receives an email from the CFO asking for a wire transfer to a new supplier account. The tone is urgent, but everything else about the message seems legitimate. The team moves to make the payment.

What happens next may depend on the fraud protection tools in place, or the lack thereof. As artificial intelligence makes vendor impersonation, business email compromise, and other fraud schemes more convincing and sophisticated, businesses that do not have advanced measures to stop fraud risk major losses.

Effectively combatting fraud requires investing in payment modernization and building a full stack of AI-powered defense tools. In their latest Prevention First: Building a Smarter Defense Against Payments Fraud report sponsored by Bottomline, PYMNTS Intelligence explores the changing face of fraud and how organizations are effectively fighting back.

89% of finance leaders say verifying vendors it a moderate-to-major burden

 

A New Threat Landscape

It's easy to get tripped up by AI-written emails, which have done away with the characteristic typos and errors that made them simple to spot in the past. In fact, 50% of firms consider AI-written vendor impersonation emails their most pressing fraud threat, well ahead of check fraud at 35%.

Meanwhile 57% of businesses are not using AI-powered fraud defenses, which can make catching those kinds of email easier.

 

Using AI to Fight AI Is Effective

Per PYMNTs research, 60% of businesses that use three or more AI tools as part of a layered defense against fraud are able to stop most fraud attempts before fraud occurs. AI isn't foolproof, but having AI in an organization's toolkit is making an appreciable difference.

A full 55% of businesses say manual reviews work well enough, a view that is increasingly challenged by the level of sophistication fraudsters are bringing to bear on organizations.

 

Adoption is Ramping Up

The tide is turning, however. PYMNTs found that 58% of businesses who aren't using AI today plan to add AI-aided fraud detection in the next 12 months.

Read the full report to better understand how AI is changing the face of fraud and fraud prevention alike.