How Worried Are Brits About AI-Fuelled Phishing?

Tom Quinn

09 April 2025, 11.15am

With phishing scams becoming smarter and more personal, Brits want better protection, but new data shows banks are falling short.

UK consumers are facing a rising tide of digital deception, with commonplace AI tools allowing cyber-criminals to create hyper-personalised scam emails and deepfake voice frauds as part of ever more sophisticated phishing attacks designed to drain victims’ bank accounts.

According to fresh polling from YouGov, more than half (51%) of UK adults are worried about falling for a financial phishing scam, while more than one in ten (11%) have already lost money to one.

Older generations are the most worried about the risk of fraud (63%), while Millennials are a lot more relaxed, with more than a third (37%) saying they’re unconcerned about falling victim, followed by 35% of Gen Z, reflecting a higher confidence in navigating new technologies.

The nature of phishing attacks has shifted, with email no longer the primary method used to target victims.

According to YouGov, which surveyed more than 2,000 people across the UK, just 14% of financial phishing scams now come through email, while nearly a quarter (24%) are carried out via phone calls – part of a growing wave of AI- and deepfake-powered voice-phishing, or ‘vishing’, campaigns.

Fears around criminals’ use of AI to create more convincing phishing scams are becoming widespread, with more than three-quarters (79%) of UK adults anxious about AI-fuelled attacks, and while Millennials were again the least worried, 72% still rated this as a top concern.

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It’s becoming more difficult for the average consumer to keep up with the abilities of tech-savvy cyber-criminals, which is why 73% think that their banks should be doing a lot more to educate their customers about phishing scams, with four in five agreeing that banks are ultimately responsible for protecting people against phishing.

However, despite 91% of UK consumers saying that phishing awareness materials from their bank helped them spot scams, only 43% have actually received any.

Banks are clearly out of step with the needs of their customers in this matter, with more than a quarter of Brits (28%) saying they would be keen to receive monthly phishing awareness updates, and digital formats like app notifications (42%) and social media posts (40%) among the popular ways to receive them.