Prominent cybersecurity firm McAfee says that AI-generated deepfakes are now an everyday threat, eroding people’s ability to tell what is real and helping scammers extract billions of dollars from Americans.
For its 2026 State of the Scamniverse Report, McAfee commissioned a global survey of 7,592 adults from the United States, Australia, India, the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Japan to gather real-world experience involving online scams.
McAfee says deepfakes have entered routine digital life. On average, Americans now see three deepfakes per day, often blended seamlessly with authentic content rather than presented as obvious hoaxes.
What once relied on visible glitches or unnatural movements has evolved into highly realistic media that looks and sounds convincingly human. The report shows that the realism is undermining trust and detection, as 35% of Americans say they are not confident in spotting deepfake scams.
Distribution data points to mainstream platforms as the primary exposure points. Consumers most commonly report seeing deepfakes on Facebook (59%), followed by YouTube (36%), TikTok (34%), Instagram (33%) and X (19%).
About 20% believe most or nearly all deepfakes they see are scams.
The financial consequences are severe. Citing FTC data, McAfee says Americans lost nearly $4 billion to investment scams in 2025, with a median loss of $10,800 per victim. McAfee notes that these scams increasingly impersonate legitimate financial services, customer support channels or crypto platforms. The scammers are now using AI-generated video and voice to add credibility and urgency.
Says McAfee,
“The financial impact of scams is rising, but the currency of those losses is changing. Scams today span everything from high-dollar investment fraud to everyday impersonation messages that steal personal information and drain time, attention, and emotional bandwidth. Together, they form a scam economy that is both more expensive and more exhausting for consumers to navigate.”
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