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AI can fool banks and wipe out jobs, warns OpenAI CEO Sam Altman
Speaking during a panel discussion led by Michelle Bowman, Vice Chair for Supervision at the Federal Reserve, Altman called out what he sees as an outdated and dangerous practice: relying on voiceprint authentication.
Speaking on comedian Theo Von’s podcast “This Past Weekend,” Altman recounted a recent moment that drove the point home.
At a recent Federal Reserve conference in Washington D.C., OpenAI CEO Sam Altman issued a stark warning to the financial sector: artificial intelligence is evolving at a pace that could soon enable fraudsters to trick banks and access people’s money, all by impersonating their voices.
Speaking during a panel discussion led by Michelle Bowman, Vice Chair for Supervision at the Federal Reserve, Altman called out what he sees as an outdated and dangerous practice: relying on voiceprint authentication.
“A thing that terrifies me is apparently there are still some financial institutions that will accept the voiceprint as authentication,” Altman said. “That is a crazy thing to still be doing. AI has fully defeated that.”
Altman said AI-generated voice clones have now become so sophisticated that they can convincingly replicate human speech patterns—making it almost impossible to tell a real person from a fake one. That capability, he warned, poses an imminent threat to banks still dependent on voice recognition for authorizing high-value transactions.
He stressed the urgency, saying this isn’t some distant theoretical problem:
“Some bad actor is going to release it – this is not a super difficult thing to do. This is coming very, very soon.”
Voiceprint Security
Voice-based authentication systems became popular over a decade ago, especially for verifying high-net-worth clients. But in today’s AI era, such systems are increasingly vulnerable. With just a few seconds of audio, modern AI tools can now clone someone’s voice with frightening accuracy—and soon, even generate realistic video impersonations.
Altman emphasized that traditional authentication methods must be overhauled immediately, or banks risk opening the door to AI-driven fraud at an unprecedented scale.
Altman also touched upon another disruptive force unleashed by AI: the automation of entire job sectors, particularly customer support.
During the same panel, he noted that AI has already transformed how companies handle customer service, with intelligent agents that are not only competent but more efficient than humans.
“Now you call one of these things and AI answers. It’s like a super-smart, capable person,” Altman said. “There’s no phone tree, there’s no transfers. It can do everything that any customer support agent at that company could do. It does not make mistakes. It’s very quick. You call once, the thing just happens, it’s done.”
He added that this shift isn’t speculative—it’s already well underway. The age of AI-powered service has arrived, and the traditional roles that once required human interaction are rapidly disappearing. Altman’s remarks serve as both a cautionary instruction and a call to action.
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