Companies lose millions paying employee expenses on fake AI-generated invoices

There are more and more companies being deceived by employees who use Generative Artificial Intelligence platforms in an old scam: falsifying expense receipts.

The launch of new image generation models by the main Artificial Intelligence platforms, such as OpenAI and Google, in recent months has triggered an avalanche of AI-generated receiptswhich are submitted internally in companies.

According to data obtained from the main expense management software platforms, this type of fraud is generating large losses in an increasing number of companies.

The software provider stated that the fake AI-generated receipts accounted for around 14% of fraudulent documents submitted in September, compared to zero last year.

The North American fintech group says that its new software has identified mmore than a million dollars in fraudulent invoices within 90 days.

Around 30% of US and UK financial professionals surveyed by the expense management platform reported experiencing a increase in counterfeit receipts following the release of OpenAI’s GPT-4o last year.

“These receipts faked by AI have become so good What we tell our customers: don’t trust your eyes“, it says Chris Juneausenior vice president and head of product marketing at , one of the world’s leading spending platforms.

Several platforms consider that the significant jump in the number of AI-generated receipts has occurred after OpenAI released the improved model of imaging at GPT-4o, in March.

OpenAI told the Financial Times that it takes action when its policies are violated and that your images contain metadata which indicate that they were created by ChatGPT.

Until now, creating fraudulent documents required skills in image editing or pay for such services through online suppliers.

The advent of imaging software free and accessible made it easy for employees Quickly falsify receipts in secondsgiving chatbots plain text instructions.

Various receipts shown to the FT by expense management platforms demonstrated the realistic nature of the images, which included wrinkles on paper, detailed breakdown that corresponded to real life menusand subscriptions.

“This is not a future threat; it’s already happening. Although currently only a small percentage of non-compliant receipts are generated by AI, this only will grow“, it says Sebastian Marchonexecutive director of , an expense management platform.

The rise of these more realistic copies has led companies to recorrespond to AI to help detect fake receiptsas most are too convincing to be discovered by human reviewers.

The software works examining receipts to check metadata of the image and discover whether an AI platform created it. However, this can easily be removed by users by taking a photo or a screenshot of the image.

An SAP investigation in July found that nearly 70% of CFOs believed their employees were using AI to attempt to falsify travel expenses or receipts; around 10% add that they have the sure this happened in your company.

Second Mason Wilderdirector of investigation at the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, “there is no barrier to entry for people to do this. They don’t need any kind of technological skills or aptitude like they might have needed five years ago using Photoshop.”

In short, AI came democratize the fake expense business — which until now was the exclusive domain of employees with the most talent for Photoshop.

However, it remains to be explained what happens to companies whose data are used in false invoices — which, once submitted by the employer to accounting, inevitably end up reach the Tax Authority. In Portugal, at least, the tax authorities would already be asking about payment of the missing tax…