In the Asia Pacific region, deepfake‑related fraud incidents have surged by more than 1,500 per cent between 2022 and 2023, with Vietnam and the Philippines being among the hardest‑hit markets, data released by the Interpol in February showed.
Sharp spikes in deepfake and synthetic‑identity fraud across fintech, including those for small merchants, have been reported in those two countries as criminals combine real data with AI‑generated details to bypass traditional verification systems, said Interpol.
Josephine Romero, senior adviser of Asean Business Advisory Council (Asean‑BAC), the private sector body of Asean, noted that MSMEs, which make up the bulk of enterprises in the region, are particularly vulnerable for digital payments as scammers craft highly personalised phishing emails, messages and scripts in multiple languages, deepfakes, and voice cloning that closely mimic legitimate customers or partners.
Without proper skills and safeguards, small firms could suffer reputational damage and financial losses that they are least able to absorb, she warned.
Romero also cited how the information technology and business process management (IT‑BPM ) industry, one of the Philippines’ largest formal private‑sector employers, with over 1.7 million professionals, already have half of their workforce adapting to integrate AI tools into daily operations.
“They are transforming to use AI because they now have to use a combination of the authentic and the synthetic human resource to be able to deliver their work properly. We need to train, as fast as we can and in a safe way,” said Romero in a webinar on Tuesday about the digital economy in the region.
The Asean Foundation launched in November a programme to train non-technical businesses owners across Southeast Asia on free AI advancement training. So far, about 17,500 small Philippines-based firms are targeted to be enrolled in the two-year programme, while up to 3,000 firms in Singapore are set to gain access to the training.
Stephanie KC Hung, chief information officer and director general of IT at Asian Development Bank, said at the same webinar that the “rapid diffusion” of AI across sectors is outpacing traditional training systems, creating a growing skills gap for MSMEs.
Public and private sectors need to strengthen human capabilities and rethink the workforce structure so employees at all levels can effectively use AI, understand its limits and manage its risks, she added.
“Both the job and workforce have to be redesigned to accommodate AI so that human capability could be further strengthened, and at the same time, rethink what [AI] is for in the future,” she said.
Asia-based companies have been found to have the weakest transparency on how they safeguard workers from AI risks, with only 7 per cent of 1,279 firms disclosing any measures, according to a report by AI Company Data Initiative.
