Fighting AI Scams with Patrick Coughlin of Savi Security

The scariest scam calls don’t sound like strangers anymore. They sound like family.

Ryo Koyama and Mike Johnson talk to Patrick Coughlin, CEO of Savi Security and author of Dark Side of the Boom, about how AI has turned scamming into the fastest growing crime in the country, from an AI-cloned kidnapping call aimed at his own mother to a voice-cloned scam that fooled one of Remote.it’s own employees.

Patrick talks about why scams go underreported, why every family should have a safe word, and why he thinks the real danger isn’t a rogue AI model, but the quiet flood of AI-powered scams already hitting everyday people’s phones.

Chapters

• 0:04 — Intro
• 0:21 — Who is Patrick Coughlin, and how did Savi Security start?
• 1:07 — The AI-powered kidnapping scam that targeted Patrick’s mother
• 2:43 — The AI voice clone scam that hit Remote.it’s team
• 5:48 — What is Dark Side of the Boom, and why did Patrick write it?
• 8:09 — The four types of imposter scams driving digital fraud
• 11:47 — Why so few victims ever report being scammed
• 14:08 — Rogue AI models, autonomous cyberattacks, and what could go catastrophically wrong
• 18:38 — Family safe words and practical ways to protect your family
• 22:25 — Scamwise, a free tool to check if something is a scam
• 23:13 — Who pays when AI fraud reaches a breaking point?
• 25:56 — Is regulation the answer, or is it already too late?
• 31:55 — AI hot take

Links

• Watch the video version
• Savi Security
• Scamwise — free scam checker
• Dark Side of the Boom
• The voice clone scam that hit our team — full story
• Remotely Local
• Remote.it