Kathleen Peters, Chief Innovation Officer for Fraud and Identity at Experian North America Inc., said on Jan. 13 that the company’s 2026 Future of Fraud Forecast identified five major fraud trends based on data showing nearly 60 percent of companies reported increased fraud losses from 2024 to 2025.
The forecast highlights the growing impact of technology on fraudulent activities and its implications for businesses and consumers.Â
“Technology is accelerating the evolution of fraud, making it more sophisticated and harder to detect,” Peters said in a press release. “Businesses need actionable insights to stay ahead of these threats. By combining differentiated data with advanced analytics and cutting-edge technology, businesses can strengthen fraud defenses, safeguard consumers, and deliver secure, seamless experiences.”
Peters made the statement in an Experian press release announcing the 2026 Future of Fraud Forecast. The forecast identified five fraud trends including agentic AI exploitation, deepfake job candidates, smart home threats, website cloning, and emotionally intelligent romance bots. Consumers lost more than $12.5 billion to fraud in 2024 according to Federal Trade Commission (FTC) data cited in the release.
Experian said that employment fraud will escalate in the remote workforce as generative artificial intelligence tools generate deepfake candidates capable of passing interviews in real time. Persona, an id verification company, launched a candidate verification solution that confirms the person applying, interviewing, and onboarding is the same individual by matching government-issued IDs to live selfies.
Okta said on its security blog that it integrated Persona as a compulsory component of its employee onboarding after identifying cases of individuals using fraudulent identities to apply at cybersecurity companies. X’s verification policy states it uses Persona for ID verification and that Persona deletes images of IDs, selfies, and extracted data after 30 days. Persona operates in over 200 countries and territories.
Kathleen Peters serves as Chief Innovation Officer for Fraud and Identity at Experian North America. Experian is a global data and technology company publicly traded on the London Stock Exchange. Experian said its fraud prevention solutions helped clients avoid an estimated $19 billion in fraud losses globally in 2025.