The Weaponisation of AI: The Industrialisation of Deception

Welcome to the 11th virtual event of the “Gen AI in FinTech & EdTech” meetup in 2025: “The Weaponisation of AI: The Industrialisation of Deception”.

Gen AI in FinTech & EdTech is dedicated to discussing and sharing the latest trends, best practices, use cases, and regulatory considerations for Gen AI applications in FinTech and EdTech industries in Australia and globally.

Event Description:

AI has become the most powerful force multiplier in human history. It’s boosting innovation, accelerating research, and reshaping entire economies. But there’s another side to it - AI has also been weaponised. The same tools that help us create are now being used to deceive at scale. Scammers are using generative AI to industrialise fraud, automate deception, and build global operations that run like legitimate businesses. In this session, Ollie unpacks how AI has enabled this shift, why scams have become an industry, and what it takes to flip the script, using AI itself to dismantle the scam economy.

Learning outcomes:

• How AI lowered the barrier to entry for fraud and enabled scalable deception.
• Why scams have evolved into industrialised business models with measurable ROI.
• The hidden economics of the trillion-dollar scam economy.
• How new AI systems can actively engage scammers to disrupt and expose their operations.
• What the future of trust and prevention looks like when AI is used for defence, not exploitation.

Featured Speakers:

Ollie Ryan (guest speaker)

Ollie is a commercial strategist and Growth Lead at Apate.ai, working at the intersection of AI and trust. He focuses on how technology can be used not just to build new industries, but to protect people from the ways it’s being weaponised. He brings experience across cybersecurity, data analytics, fintech, and startups, where he’s spent his career helping emerging technologies find real-world commercial footing. At Apate, he’s helping to turn AI into a tool for fairness by disrupting the business models of scammers and reducing the harm caused by digital deception.

Ollie believes AI has extraordinary potential to make the world fairer and safer, but only if we recognise how it’s being used to create the opposite. His work sits in that tension - turning the same technology that powers large-scale fraud into something that restores trust.

Kurt Yang (host)

Kurt is an experienced product leader, passionate about leveraging innovative digital technologies and lean product management methodology to help organisations and customers solve their problems effectively. Over the years, Kurt accumulated solid product management experience from companies like CBA, VMware, and Cashrewards.

Kurt also provides lean product management consulting to startups and product coaching to individuals through kurtyang.com, as well as AI consulting for SME organisations through PlusAI Solutions.

Agenda:

• Introduction
• Presentation
• Learnings and tips sharing
• Q&A

Where: Virtual (Google Meet link will be provided upon registration)