Apate.ai and Mobileum Partnered to Combat Telecom Fraud
The collaboration integrates autonomous AI agents into carrier networks to intercept and analyze scam traffic in real time.
Updated on Sept. 23, 2026 in Telecommunications
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Apate.ai has partnered with Mobileum to provide autonomous counter-intelligence services for communications service providers. This platform, marketed as Scam Intelligence Defense, uses AI agents to engage with threat actors and extract intelligence from fraudulent traffic.
Why it matters
Communications providers currently lack visibility into the content of scam calls, allowing fraud to bypass traditional security layers. This technology addresses that gap by engaging scammers directly to uncover operational details used in large-scale fraud campaigns.
Apate.ai agents have conducted over 9.3 million conversations with threat actors, consuming 17 years of scammer time and preventing more than $33 million in losses. The system operates by redirecting suspicious traffic to these agents, which then surface mule accounts, cryptocurrency wallets, and malicious URLs.
The players
Apate.ai
A startup developing autonomous AI agents designed to engage with and gather intelligence from scammers.
Mobileum
A provider of analytics and security solutions for telecommunications service providers.
The details
When a network detects suspicious traffic, it redirects the call to autonomous AI agents that mimic human conversation to keep scammers occupied. This engagement allows the system to identify the infrastructure behind the fraud, such as specific phone numbers and malicious URLs, which are otherwise opaque to the carrier. The platform functions as a counter-intelligence layer that operates behind the scenes of standard STIR/SHAKEN protocols, where 17 percent of spoofed calls currently carry the highest level of attestation despite being fraudulent.
Timeline
2023: Global telecom fraud losses reached $38.95 billion.
2025: Global telecom fraud losses reached $41.82 billion.
The Tech Race
This integration seeks to solve the limitations of the STIR/SHAKEN authentication protocols, which fail to block all spoofed calls even when they carry high-level attestation. By moving from passive verification to active engagement, the technology attempts to disrupt the operational economics of global scam networks.
The Scam Intelligence Defense platform is designed for enterprise communications service providers to deploy within their networks. Users will not interact with these AI agents directly; instead, they will benefit from reduced exposure to scam traffic and fraudulent messaging as carriers gain new tools to identify and neutralize malicious actors.
The takeaway
This partnership shifts the focus from simply authenticating calls to proactively gathering intelligence on the actors behind global fraud operations. Watch for updates on the adoption rate of the Scam Intelligence Defense platform among major international carriers to see if these efforts meaningfully reduce annual fraud losses.
Further reading
For more on how carriers are hardening networks against automated threats, visit Telecommunications.
Source note: This article includes information reported by Thefastmode.
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