Australia's corporate watchdog has sounded the alarm over a "sharp rise" in AI-powered investment scams, removing a record 19,400 online scams in the past 12 months — a 182% jump on the previous year.

In a report released Monday, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) detailed how scammers now deploy AI-generated deepfakes of well-known politicians, billionaires and journalists to promote bogus investment platforms. Among the most impersonated faces: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Opposition Leader Angus Taylor, billionaire Gina Rinehart, the late broadcaster John Laws, Senator Pauline Hanson and veteran ABC finance journalist Alan Kohler.

The scams typically begin as social media ads featuring a celebrity "endorsement", then funnel victims through fake news articles — "social proof" — to sham investment websites that take their money.

Australians lost more than $2 billion to scams in 2025, according to the National Anti-Scam Centre, with investment scams accounting for 38% of that figure — around $837.7 million.

"AI is significantly exacerbating the challenges in a range of ways," said ASIC chair Sarah Court, adding that users can now "look at it very carefully, take your time over it and still not be able to ascertain if it's a fake or not."

Alan Kohler, whose image is used without permission in many of the fake ads, described the takedown game as "whack-a-mole — it just kept coming back", and called it "potentially an emergency in the making". He argued that government intervention is needed because platforms cannot solve the problem alone.

Meta said the rising takedown numbers could reflect better detection rather than more scams, noting its facial-recognition tools for impersonation ads have contributed to a 22% drop in user reports.

ASIC says the scams are becoming more polished and harder to detect, and urged consumers to verify any investment scheme against the national financial services licence register before handing over money.

Sources