This week, I nearly got scammed by someone pretending to be my business bank. They sure were good.
But, right at the end, when the guy who was ‘from the bank’ asked me to go to the app and approve the payment that he’d “cancelled it at his end”, a big notice came up on my phone saying “We are NOT on the phone with you right now. If you are speaking to someone about a payment, put the phone down straight away.”
It’s one of the best scams I’ve ever faced, and I nearly fell for it. Part of me has a grudging respect, although I’m sure I’d feel different if I had been caught out.
Despite the threat of fake, vanilla AI content, whether it’s scams or sales and marketing, it is getting much, much harder to get away with stuff these days. In marketing, you’ll often be told about the need to be authentic, but it’s even more than that because the mainstream use of artificial intelligence has made human intelligence more sceptical than ever.
If you’re trying to cut through and get attention, no matter how authentic you think you are being, someone is sitting there wondering if you are telling the truth.
The answer is what it’s always been. You can not be something for everyone. But by being honest about that and ensuring your messages are focused and clear, you should find like-minded people and slowly build trust.
And trust – well, it’s a commodity that is worth hanging on to and oh so easy to lose.