AI-assisted spear-phishing

Ordinary phishing is mass-mailed and often easy to spot. Spear-phishing is aimed at one person, using details about them to feel authentic. AI removes the old warning signs: clumsy grammar and awkward phrasing disappear, the message can be written in flawless local language, and public information about the target can be woven in automatically — all at scale, so thousands of individually tailored lures cost almost nothing to produce.

Because the message itself may carry no obvious tell, the defence shifts to behaviour rather than detection: be wary of unexpected urgency, requests to click a link or move money, and any deviation from normal process — and verify through a separate, known channel before acting.