Deepfake Voice Scams Could Cost Americans Nearly $40 Billion a Year

Over the past 12 months, one in four Americans received a deepfake voice call. A separate survey found that more than two-thirds of people who received an AI voice scam reported losing money. As deepfake voice scams continue to rise and consumer trust in phone calls keeps falling, the Insuranceopedia team estimated how much they could cost Americans each year.

According to data presented by Insuranceopedia.com, deepfake voice scams could cost Americans nearly $40 billion a year.

$40 Billion Is Enough to Pay 750,000 Average Annual Salaries

Consumer trust in phone calls continues to decline as deepfake voice scams become more common. According to call protection company Hiya’s annual State of the Call 2026 report, which surveyed more than 12,000 consumers, one in three said their overall trust in phone calls had declined over the past 12 months because of scams. That doesn’t come as a surprise, given how quickly these scam calls are rising.

The same report found that 25% of Americans received a deepfake voice call in the past year. Based on the U.S. adult population, that translates to roughly 64.5 million Americans who were targeted by these scams.

With such a large number of potential victims, the Insuranceopedia team looked into how much deepfake voice scams could cost Americans each year.

While Hiya’s survey doesn’t estimate the share of recipients who lost money, we combined its findings with McAfee survey data showing that 77% of people who received an AI voice scam reported losing money. We then applied the FTC’s median reported imposter scam loss of $800 to estimate the potential financial impact.

According to the analysis, if 77% of the estimated 64.5 million U.S. adults who received a deepfake voice call – calculated by applying Hiya’s 25% exposure rate to the U.S. adult population- lost the FTC median amount of $800, the total financial impact could reach a staggering $39.7 billion in a single year.

To put that into perspective, that’s enough to pay the average annual salary of roughly 750,000 Americans. The same amount could also buy nearly 880,000 new cars priced at $45,000 each or cover the median value of more than 95,000 U.S. homes.

Even in a Conservative Scenario, Deepfake Voice Scams Could Cost Americans More Than $2.6 Billion a Year

To better understand the potential financial impact of deepfake voice scams, the Insuranceopedia team also modeled conservative, base-case, and high-case scenarios.

The conservative scenario assumes that only 5% of Americans who received a deepfake voice call lost money. Even then, the total annual losses would still reach $2.6 billion. That’s enough to pay the average annual salary of nearly 49,000 Americans, showing that even a small share of victims could still translate into billions of dollars in losses every year.

Under the high-case scenario, which assumes that 90% of people who received a deepfake voice call lost money, the annual losses climb to $46.4 billion, which is enough to pay the average annual salaries of nearly 875,000 Americans.

However, these estimates may still be on the conservative side. Because the analysis is based on the FTC’s median reported loss of $800, the actual financial impact could be much higher. McAfee found that 36% of victims who lost money reported losses between $500 and $3,000, while another 7% lost between $5,000 and $15,000.