Tackling Brand Impersonation Using the Power of Advanced AI and Human Expertise

From fake social media profiles that peddle travel scams, to imitation websites claiming to offer medicines and treatments, consumers and businesses are falling victim to brand impersonation at an alarming rate. And this is only being accelerated by generative AI tools such as ChatGPT, OpenArt, and Scribe, exploited by bad actors to generate convincing assets at unprecedented speed and volume.

Our latest eBook, The Three Key Components of a Successful Brand Protection Program, analyzes the current threat landscape facing brands and the tools businesses can use to maintain consumer trust and brand reputation.

Bad actors exploit consumers through three distinct threats: counterfeits, brand impersonation, and grey market goods. In part one of this blog series, we explored the changing threat landscape and real-world examples of brand impersonation. Read part two below to learn how you can stop the AI arms race to fight impersonation, safeguarding consumers’ digital trust.

Table of contents:

• Stop the AI arms race with Brand Protection powered by hybrid intelligence

• Save time with automated threat detection and prioritization

• Speed up time to action with AI-assisted enforcement

• Brand Protection technology in action

Stop the AI arms race with Brand Protection powered by Hybrid Intelligence

With bad actors turning to generative AI tools to create scam materials and impersonation profiles to be deployed across social media, marketplaces, and eCommerce websites the AI arms race for brand owners has well and truly begun.

AI has enabled bad actors to propagate scams and impersonation at speed and scale. Unfortunately, this issue is only set to grow as AI tools become increasingly powerful and easy to use. What would once take a bad actor weeks to produce can now be spun up in a matter of minutes – from convincing, professionally written copy, to detailed product illustrations and advertising materials.

Examples include:

• Deepfakes of videos, images, audio to impersonate brand, personalities or leaders
• Impersonation of AI assistants that mimic branded chatbots or even employees for phishing

So, what can you do to stay ahead of the threats and safeguard brand reputation?

While AI certainly has nefarious use cases, it also can be used as force for good. Businesses are already harnessing it to detect, predict, and act against threats such as brand impersonation. As part of a hybrid intelligence approach, businesses can stay ahead of the AI arms race with Brand Protection technology underpinned by hybrid intelligence.

What is hybrid intelligence?

It takes human intervention and diplomacy to stop an arms race. That’s why it is critical that brands can harness a combination of the speed, scalability, and pattern recognition capabilities of AI with the judgment of industry-specific experts with access to the largest datasets. This approach is coined ‘Hybrid Intelligence’.

In the context of Brand Protection, the synergy of advanced AI and human expertise allows you to detect, prioritize, and remove threats rapidly across all channels. With high degrees of accuracy, hybrid intelligence enables you to protect brand reputation, safeguard consumers, and deliver real ROI with your program.

As highlighted in our recent eBook, there are several key capabilities powered by hybrid intelligence at your disposal to fight brand impersonation:

Save time with automated threat detection and prioritization

Use automated detection and threat prioritization to find the scams before consumers fall prey to them. With this technology, you can reduce manual workload and speed up threat detection by recognizing the hallmark signs of scams and impersonation accounts – such as spelling mistakes, negative reviews, and the redirection of consumers to illicit domains.

It is also important to automatically monitor and prioritize phishing-related keywords that scammers regularly use or create variants of in relation to your products or wider industry. Keywords and matched images can be used to flag the high-risk posts that threaten consumers.

How AI addresses impersonation – An example of how an impersonation profile on social media is automatically detected

You can use AI to continuously monitor for any similarities on posts and listings to infringements that have been encountered before.

How AI addresses impersonation – An example of how an impersonation website is automatically detected

Automated threat detection delivers unparalleled efficiency, speed, and accuracy, culminating in superior decision-making and increased ROI for your program.

Image technology

Sophisticated image technology allows you to find bad actors that attempt to go under the radar – it also speeds up the detection of similar infringements. Find text in images with optical character recognition (OCR), and similar (but not necessarily identical) products and brands with similar matching. Use logo detection to match your logos, symbols, and patterns – even if obscured.

Network Intelligence

Network Intelligence technology is key to identify larger threats. Use this capability to trace links between separate accounts and locate the perpetrators at the heart of networks. This approach enables you to see what your consumers see, giving your team the data and tools to take targeted action against scammers and criminal networks.

You can then enforce at scale to take out the online portion of the operation rather than engaging in tactical takedowns – or refer the network to an investigations team to dig further and initiate offline action.

Speed up time to action with AI-assisted enforcement

AI that learns from previous enforcement actions enables your analysts to quickly recognize risks and recommend the top threats for action. The more actions taken by analysts, the more your AI will be able to flag similar infringements using an enforcement predictability engine.

Advanced AI enables you to surface over 70% more threats that would otherwise be missed. Auto-generated takedown notices and platform APIs mean you can improve time to action and minimize the risk to your consumers.

Seasoned professionals serve as an extension of your team, there to drive and execute your strategy, provide expert insights, and ensure enforcement actions are accurate and successful.

See our Brand Protection technology in action

It’s essential that you’re proactive rather than reactive when tackling brand impersonation and scams. To facilitate this, your team needs the right solution that effectively blends advanced AI and human expertise to provide full visibility of threats, swift enforcement at scale, lasting impact and tangible ROI.

Our AI-powered and expert-guided Brand Protection technology provides:

• The broadest visibility of threats across all online channels
• Instant identification of new impersonation profiles
• Enforcement with proven success
• Lasting impact to protect your brand, IP, and consumers

Our imaging AI uncovers 70% more than keyword searches alone, while our prioritization engine saves you hundreds of hours in manual review time. Request a demo to see how you can harness our technology to swiftly detect and remove brand impersonation across your key channels.

eBook: Building a Successful Brand Protection Program

Successful Brand Protection programs combine three key components to protect consumers and deliver substantial ROI.

Use our eBook to dive deeper into the technology and expertise you’ll need from your solution provider to support these components and realize your strategy.

Read eBook >