When Sundararaman Ramamurthy, chief executive of the Bombay Stock Exchange, found himself apparently dispensing stock tips in a slick online video, the most alarming detail was not the sophistication of the forgery. It was the plausibility. The face looked right. The voice carried a familiar cadence. The authority felt authentic. And that was precisely the point. Deepfakes have moved beyond celebrity pranks and political satire. They are now calibrated instruments aimed at the nervous system of modern commerce: trust. Financial markets, corporate hierarchies and digital communications all depend on the assumption that a voice or a face corresponds to a real, accountable individual.

Artificial intelligence has shattered that assumption. Consider the implications. If the head of India’s oldest stock exchange can be convincingly fabricated urging investors to buy specific shares, retail traders scrolling through Instagram or WhatsApp are left navigating a hall of mirrors. The Securities and Exchange Board of India can issue warnings. Exchanges can file complaints. Yet the damage lies not only in monetary loss but in corrosion of credibility. Every genuine message now competes with the suspicion that it could be synthetic. The threat is not confined to India. In 2024, executives at the engineering firm Arup were duped into transferring $25m after a video call that appeared to feature senior leadership.

The participants were digital impostors. Around the same time, Karim Toubba of LastPass discovered that his likeness had been used in an attempted internal fraud. The attackers required neither a film studio nor vast capital – only commercially available AI tools and a plausible pretext. What makes this moment distinct is the collapsing cost of deception. For a few thousand dollars, criminals can manufacture authority. Meanwhile, companies must invest exponentially more in cybersecurity staff, biometric verification tools and layered authentication protocols. This asymmetry favours the aggressor. There is also a psychological dimension. Corporate culture often prizes responsiveness and deference to senior executives. A message marked “urgent” from a chief financial officer is rarely questioned. Deepfakes weaponise that instinct. The fraud succeeds not merely because the technology is advanced, but because organisational habits remain outdated.

The answer cannot be technological alone. Yes, firms should deploy AI-based detection systems that analyse micro-expressions and blood-flow patterns. But they must also institutionalise scepticism. No large transfer should hinge on a single video call. No executive instruction should bypass established verification chains. In other words, procedure must trump perception. Governments, too, have a role. Regulators such as SEBI and counterparts worldwide should treat deepfake fraud as a systemic financial risk, not an episodic cybercrime. Disclosure norms, reporting standards and public awareness campaigns need urgent strengthening. We are entering an era where seeing is no longer believing. The camera, once a witness, has become an accomplice. If institutions fail to adapt, the next deepfake will not merely embarrass a chief executive. It will undermine the fragile architecture of digital trust on which the global economy now rests.

Sundararaman Ramamurthy

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