Identity deception is the deliberate use of an AI-generated voice or conversational agent to make a phone caller believe they are speaking with a real person when they are actually interacting with an AI system. Below is a first-hand account of why financial professionals need to be aware of this practice.


Last week I invited my colleague, Sam Carter, to join me on a sales call. The client’s situation sounded like it involved a complex registration and compliance scenario, so I wanted our Director of Registration and Compliance on the call so he could evaluate the client’s needs and help address their questions directly.

The conversation started off like any other sales call. A pleasant intro, questions about the basic RIA registration process, timelines, state vs. SEC registration thresholds, and ongoing compliance responsibilities. Basically, we addressed many of the questions we’d expect during a typical registration call. So at first, there were no red flags raised.

About 15 minutes in however, the call took a strange turn. I was hosting the call from my cell phone when, out of nowhere, an automated voice cut in asking us to rate the call. It was the type of prompt you’d expect from Zoom or another conferencing platform, not from a cell phone call.

That’s when things shifted. The client’s tone went flat, almost mechanical. Longer pauses crept into the conversation. Questions we’d already answered started coming back around, but they were worded differently. Overall, Sam and I felt like the conversation had looped rather than progressed.

Now, we don’t know for certain that we were talking to an AI bot. But we know enough now to say this much: we couldn’t rule it out. And that, on its own, should concern every business development and marketing professional in the financial services space.

We’re Not Ready for This

For years, “fake leads” meant a bot filling out a contact form with a junk email address. Sure it was annoying, but easy to filter out. That world is gone. Today we’re dealing with:

  • AI-generated leads that pass basic scrutiny: plausible names, real-sounding firms, believable intent
  • Voice clones and deepfake video that can sit in a live Zoom call and hold a conversation
  • Synthetic identities built specifically to get past the first layer of due diligence that most of us rely on

For investment advisors and RIAs, this isn’t just a marketing nuisance. It’s a trust and compliance problem. Every lead that comes in, every “prospective client” on a discovery call, is a potential entry point, and the tools to fake that entry point convincingly are now cheap and accessible.

What Can You Do To Protect Your Firm & Your Time from Identity Deception

None of us has time to chase down ghost leads. As a best practice, we now employ the following, and encourage you and your firm to take similar measures:

  • Avoid telephone-only calls for early engagement and discovery conversations; use a video conferencing platform like Zoom instead, where you can actually observe the person you’re speaking with.
  • Watch for small tells: lighting mismatches, lip-sync drift, and how someone reacts to an unscripted question
  • Ask the client to confirm their identity by holding their hand in front of their face and turning their head from side to side, since deepfake video reportedly still struggles to render this convincingly in real time.
  • Confirm identity through a second channel, such as a callback to a known number, a LinkedIn profile, etc. Always make sure you confirm the person is real before anything sensitive is discussed.

None of this used to be part of a standard sales process. Now we think it has to be.

The Bigger Question

If a firm like ours, steeped in compliance, registration, and due diligence, can get thrown off by a conversation that might not have been human, what does that mean for advisors who are moving fast, managing high lead volume, and don’t have compliance instincts baked into every interaction?

We don’t have the definitive answer yet. But we think the industry needs to start having this conversation out loud, instead of discovering it one uncomfortable call at a time.

Until then, if you’re exploring RIA registration or navigating ongoing compliance and want to talk it through with a real person (we promise), reach out to our team at Advisor Guidance. We’re happy to answer your questions, no bots involved. 

And please, don’t be insulted if we ask you to put your hand in front of your face and turn your head during our initial conversation. 🙂

For more insight into how artificial intelligence is reshaping the RIA landscape, please check out: How AI Is Changing How Investors Find and Vet RIAs