Deepfake: State of Play and Policy Landscape with Reality Defender | REPLAY

Research evidence excerpt

Deepfake: State of Play and Policy Landscape with Reality Defender | REPLAY

Global | Washington Strategy July 2, 2026

Deepfake: State of Play and Policy Landscape

with Reality Defender | REPLAY

We hosted Ben Colman, CEO of Reality Defender, which provides real-time

deepfake detection across voice, video, and images. KTs: 1) Deepfake fraud

is rising as voice and facial cloning become cheaper and easier; 2) Deepfakes

becoming a material risk; 3) AI agents create both opportunities & security risks;

4) Detection is core infrastructure for enterprises; 5) Regulation is needed but

is lagging behind technology.

.

1) Deepfake fraud is rising as voice and facial cloning get cheaper and easier. Convincing clones

can be made from a few seconds of audio or a single image. Many low-cost or free tools are

available online, and advanced deepfake generation now runs on consumer smartphones and Aniket Shah, PhD * | Head of Sust. &

laptops rather than cloud infrastructure. GenAI has sharply cut the cost of impersonation attacks, Transition Strategy

letting fraudsters scale from individual scams to millions of simultaneous attempts. +1 (212) 323-3976 | ashah14@jefferies.com

Yujin Kim * | Sust. & Transition Strategy

2) Deepfakes are an underappreciated fraud and security risk. Colman estimates the economic Associate

impact is already in the tens of billions of dollars annually and remains significantly under-reported, +1 (212) 778-8314 | ykim4@jefferies.com

affecting financial institutions, governments, corporations, and consumers. Growing realism of Charles Boakye, CFA * | Sust. & Transition

synthetic voices, videos, and images boosts the effectiveness of social engineering, identity theft, Strategist

payment fraud, and impersonation.