Speaking at a conference hosted by the Federal Reserve Board Tuesday, Sam Altman, head of OpenAI, said he is "terrified" when he thinks about how generative artificial intelligence can be leveraged to impersonate people.

"Apparently there are still some financial institutions that will accept the voice [prompt] as authentication to move a lot of money," said Altman. "That is a crazy thing to still be doing. I am very nervous that we have an impending, significant, impending fraud crisis."

Altman underlined the growing ability of generative AI to mimic human interactions and how it can easily maneuver past verification mechanisms, such as voice and facial recognition, and added that the AI capabilities that are already widely available aren't even necessarily the most cutting-edge AI capabilities that exist.

"AI has fully defeated most of the ways that people authenticate," he added during a fireside chat with Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman. "I am very nervous that we have an impending fraud crisis. Just because we're not releasing technology doesn't mean it doesn't exist — some bad actor is going to release it. This is coming very, very soon." 

The topic of fraud has recently been raised by Michael Barr, a member of the Federal Reserve Board and former vice chair for supervision, who warned during a separate  conference that many banks rely on voice detection as a form of identity verification and warned that such systems could be vulnerable to deepfake gen AI attacks.

Speaking at the Fed event, OpenAI's leader also expressed surprise at how ready and willing many banks have been to adopt new technology, hailing it as one of the most "innovative industries," adding that, despite the banking industry having some trepidations about AI-related risk, there's also concern regarding the implications of not being early AI adopters. 

Altman's anecdote about banks being eager adopters of AI is backed up by research. A recent study published by American Banker found that 80% of U.S. banks surveyed said that they plan to increase their AI spending for 2025. Of the bankers surveyed, 11% said they expect to make a significant increase — 25% or more — in their use of AI, while 25% plan a moderate increase of 10% to 24%, and 44% anticipate a slight increase of less than 10%.

Altman's appearance at the Fed conference coincides with the Trump administration ushering in a friendlier environment for businesses, including those operating in the technology space. 

After taking office, President Donald Trump signed into law an executive order on AI, removing perceived hindrances to innovation. More recently, Trump signed a stablecoin bill into law late last week, establishing basic rules around stabecoin issuers for the first time.