On January 21st, just two days before the primary election, numerous New Hampshire voters received robocalls containing a recording of an AI-generated clone of President Biden’s voice.
“This coming Tuesday is the New Hampshire Presidential Preference Primary. Republicans have been trying to push nonpartisan and Democratic voters to participate in their primary. What a bunch of malarkey. We know the value of voting Democratic when our votes count. It’s important that you save your vote for the November election. We’ll need your help in electing Democrats up and down the ticket. Voting this Tuesday only enables the Republicans in their quest to elect Donald Trump again. Your vote makes a difference in November, not this Tuesday.”
This marked the first known widespread case of voter suppression using sophisticated text-to-speech technology. The pressing question now is: How do we catch the next AI-generated, nefarious robocall in real-time before they reach the public? Today, we are excited to announce a partnership with YouMail and the creation of the Election Communication Defense Grid (ECDG).
Understanding the Election Robocall Threat
This year, a total of 468 seats in the U.S. Congress (33 Senate seats and all 435 House seats) along with the Presidency are up for election. Politicians are employing a variety of tactics to reach their constituents, including door-to-door campaigning, social media, traditional media ads, and email campaigns. With the recent launch of PindropⓇ Pulse™ Inspect, we’ve made available a forensic tool for media organizations, nonprofits, and governments to analyze and detect synthetically generated audio in digital media. The platform has already been used to identify and analyze several high-profile deepfakes, including a recent parody of Kamala Harris.
However, one critical area remained unaddressed: political robocalls. As we approach the November elections, voters’ voicemails are filled with these automated messages, where recordings of candidates discuss their platforms and encourage voter turnout. The challenge was clear: How do we get our technology into the hands of organizations that can flag political voicemails in real-time to help protect consumers from AI-generated speech?
State-of-the-art detection meets carrier-grade distribution
Enter YouMail, the industry’s only call-sensor network that accurately detects robocalls in real time, enabling carriers to stop fraud, spam, and other malicious attacks from reaching consumers. YouMail’s sensor network monitors billions of real consumer calls across all major US carriers to detect threats accurately and immediately.
We began collaborating with YouMail’s engineering teams the day after detecting the TTS engine behind the Biden robocall. After seven months of collaboration and analyzing robocalls from over a thousand political candidates in 2024 (the incumbents and their key challengers), we are proud to officially announce our partnership with YouMail and the creation of the Election Communication Defense Grid (ECDG).
Now that YouMail has PindropⓇ Pulse™ Inspect, our latest deepfake detection APIs, integrated into their robocall mitigation service, carriers who are using the YouMail Sensor Network can, in real time, block deepfaked political robocalls from originating or traversing their networks.
Learn more about our partnership at YouMail.com and ECDG.org.
