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World desk5 min

Finally, a Good Use for AI: O2’s Daisy Wastes Scam Callers’ Time

O2’s Daisy uses conversational AI to keep suspected scam callers talking. Here’s how the campaign works, what its reported call figures mean, and what to do if you receive a suspicious call.
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O2’s Daisy is a conversational AI campaign built to keep suspected scam callers talking, not a consumer service you can use to bait callers yourself. Virgin Media O2 says the system has answered more than 1,000 scam calls, with some lasting up to 40 minutes. Those are company-reported campaign figures—not independent proof that Daisy has reduced fraud or prevented losses.

What Daisy does—and what it does not prove

Virgin Media O2 describes Daisy, also styled dAIsy, as an autonomous, human-like AI that responds to suspected scam callers in real time. Its intended job is simple: keep the caller occupied and away from people who might otherwise answer.

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The company reported in 2025 that Daisy had answered more than 1,000 scam calls and kept some callers talking for up to 40 minutes. Those figures describe Daisy’s activity; they do not show how many crimes were prevented, how much money was saved, or whether callers stopped targeting other people. No independent evaluation of Daisy’s effect on scam losses or victimization is established in the available material.

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Murray Mackenzie, Virgin Media O2’s Director of Fraud, described the campaign this way: “The newest member of our fraud-prevention team, Daisy, is turning the tables on scammers – outsmarting and outmanoeuvring them at their own cruel game simply by keeping them on the line.” That is the company’s characterization of its initiative, rather than an independently measured impact finding.

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How the AI keeps a caller talking

O2 says Daisy’s system transcribes a caller’s speech, sends it to a custom large language model with a character layer, then turns the generated reply into speech using custom text-to-speech. O2 says the AI can hold conversations without its creators supplying each response.

The tactic is not to challenge a suspected scammer or announce that they have been identified. Instead, Daisy sustains a meandering conversation, giving callers less time to reach real people. The “AI granny” persona is part of O2’s campaign framing; Daisy is not a publicly available assistant or a feature customers can switch on.

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What O2 says it has heard from scammers

In its campaign updates, O2 says callers often rely on scripts, impersonate trusted companies and create pressure to act. The company has also described calls being passed among several people, including one instance involving four callers. These are observations and anecdotes from O2’s campaign, not a comprehensive study of scam operations or estimates of how prevalent any tactic is.

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O2’s broader fraud-prevention announcements have included other company figures. In a 2024 announcement, it said 69% of surveyed Britons had been targeted by scammers, but the announcement does not provide survey methodology. It also said more than £250 million in suspected fraudulent transactions had been intercepted and blocked in the prior year; that is a company-reported figure, not an independently audited total, and it should not be attributed to Daisy alone. O2 separately reported blocking 89 million texts in the prior year, with the 7726 reporting service helping in part. These numbers describe O2’s wider activity, not proof of Daisy’s specific effect.

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Automated scam-baiting has some research behind it—but not Daisy’s results

A 2023 preprint by Piyush Bajaj and Matthew Edwards, “Automatic Scam-Baiting Using ChatGPT”, reports a month-long experiment involving two automated ChatGPT email baiters, a control and engagement with more than 250 real email fraudsters. The authors report higher response rates and longer conversations with the automated baiters than with the control.

That study offers context for the idea of automated baiting, but its scope was email. It does not validate Daisy’s phone-call figures, establish that phone scambaiting reduces financial losses, or show that a caller kept busy will not simply try someone else.

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Why you should not try to scambait callers yourself

Daisy is a campaign system operated by a telecom company, not a template for handling suspicious calls. O2 advises the public to leave scambaiting to AI specialists. A suspicious caller may be using a spoofed caller ID, so a familiar company name or local-looking number does not prove who is calling. The FTC likewise warns that caller ID can be spoofed to resemble a local number or government agency.

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  • Do not give an unexpected caller a password, one-time code, payment detail or other sensitive information.
  • Do not press numbers in response to a robocall; the FTC advises hanging up instead.
  • Do not rely on the caller ID display to verify identity. End the call and contact the organization through a number you obtain independently.

What to do instead: report and block suspicious calls

If you are in the UK

  1. Hang up if an unexpected caller claiming to represent O2 seems suspicious, especially if they ask for personal details or a code.
  2. To contact O2, call 202 from an O2 phone, or use the organization’s official contact details rather than a number supplied by the caller.
  3. Forward suspicious calls or texts to 7726. O2 says reporting is free and helps its investigations and blocking; its guidance also lists urgent language, requests for sensitive or financial information and unfamiliar callback numbers as warning signs.

O2’s campaign character Daisy offered similar advice as its “Head of Scammer Relations”: “If you’re even slightly unsure, it’s best to politely hang up and call back on an official number and report to 7726 to help everyone stay safe.”

If you are in the United States

  1. Hang up on suspected scam calls, and avoid pressing buttons during robocalls.
  2. Consider call-blocking or call-labeling tools from your carrier or a reputable app. These are defensive tools to filter or identify unwanted calls; Daisy is a campaign AI intended to occupy callers, not a consumer blocking service.
  3. Report a phone scam to the FTC. If you lost money, use ReportFraud.gov; if you did not lose money, the FTC says you can report calls at DoNotCall.gov.

The FTC’s legal guidance is US-specific: its Telemarketing Sales Rule prohibits nearly all telemarketing robocalls to consumers, and the agency has affirmed that the rule prohibits robocalls using voice-cloning technology. This is not a blanket statement about all AI-generated speech or the law in other countries. FTC Bureau of Consumer Protection Director Samuel Levine said: “Today’s changes provide important new protections for small business and will help ensure that the FTC can take action against deceptive marketers who use AI robocalls and other emerging technology,”

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