Grandma fights phone criminals

Grandma fights phone criminals - 17th February 2025

In 2024, more than $1.03 trillion dollars were lost. The money went to scammers. Scammers are criminals. They phone people to get money by tricking them. They often call old people.

Daisy, a 78-year-old English grandmother, is now helping with this problem. But Daisy isn't a real woman. She certainly isn't a real grandmother. Daisy's an AI grandma. Virgin Media O2, the telecommunications company, made her.

Recently, Daisy took hundreds of telephone calls. Most scammers didn't know she was an AI bot. They often talked to her for over 40 minutes. Daisy talks about baking cakes, or her cat Fluffy. She says she knows nothing about computers.

The scammers sometimes get angry with her. They just want her bank account details. Daisy helps stop scammers from talking to real people. She wastes their time. And O2 can use Daisy to get important information too. They can learn how scammers work.