PETALING JAYA: Artificial intelligence (AI) is making investment scams a lot more sophisticated, convincing and seriously difficult to detect.
In early August this year, the Malaysia Crime Prevention Foundation (MCPF) said more than 66,000 online fraud cases had taken place, involving RM2.97bil in losses nationwide in 2025, in which AI platforms were the primary methods used by scammers.
This prompted financial and technology firm Ted Optimus to take an unconventional approach to investor education by allowing people to get scammed in a game before they do so in real life.
Co-founder, Yuan Ting Jing said he saw a huge gap in the market despite numerous talks and sessions on avoiding scams.
“It is a one-way form of communication where people listen to someone speak about scams or what to look out for but never experience it for themselves.
“What we designed was something people can actively participate in, and get to experience within their own knowledge,” he told StarBiz.
Yuan added DecodeAI was developed to be a free web-based “escape room” game that simulates investment scams and puts users through a series of increasingly difficult scenarios, where they have to decide whether to click, respond, provide information or walk away.
“We created numerous scams throughout the game that would be very similar to how people are getting scammed today.
“For instance, we created a scam by a financial website that had the exact same spelling except that the real website had a capital letter in its name.
“The scam had a lower case, but not many would notice,” Yuan explained.
Ted Optimus chief executive officer Warren Mak said it was a safe environment for people to fall into scams without actually losing their money.
When asked why so many get scammed today, Mak said one of the main reasons is because people are fearful of missing out.
“It’s not just the older generation that gets scammed, but across the board.
“Working individuals might think there is an easier way to make money out there, follow what their peers are doing, and as a result all lose hundreds of thousands to scams,” he explained.
In his 32 years of experience in capital markets, Mak has seen the consequences of so many who lose their entire livelihoods through scams.
“The saddest thing is, it doesn’t just involve the person who was scammed.
“More than often, their entire families are impacted. I have met many people who would think it’s not possible for them to get scammed, but unfortunately, even when they play the game, they get trapped at some point or another.
“This goes to show that you can know the ways people are scamming out there, but AI is making it even more difficult to tell it apart,” he cautioned.
AI has reduced the cost and technical barrier to becoming a scammer, allowing them to create convincing fake faces, documents, websites and company impersonations at speed.
This means scams are no longer necessarily identifiable by obvious spelling mistakes, poor websites or amateurish presentations.
Mak said when developing the game, they took into consideration the same type of scams people faced, so that the game portrayed the reality of what’s happening in the real world.
“The game is able to be modified as we go along, because it was all developed in-house. So unfortunately, as more people get scammed and make police reports, we are able to see how or what scammed them, and add that into the game,” he pointed out.
So far, DecodeAI has registered about 210 unique players from all walks of life since they launched on June 12 this year.
Participants to the website underwent about 550 sessions, with only 36 of them finishing the full course.
Once the game is played, participants are then asked to fill out a survey.
Yuan said more than four persons in five said the game had helped improve their awareness.
“In the game, the biggest gains were fake job offers, fake investment schemes and fake apps. We had 17 participants out of 21 say they would share it with someone vulnerable,” he said.
So what’s next for the team?
Yuan said because the game is easily adaptable, they will eventually look to commercialising the website.
As of now, it is free for anyone to try out.
“One area we could look into is, curating a game specifically for an industry.
“For instance, how could a data centre employee be scammed?
“Different sectors will have different means of scamming. We’re hoping that this can happen in a year or so,” he added.
Mak also said they are keen to work with the police, MCPF, Bursa Malaysia, educational institutions and other relevant agencies to educate more people, as AI is only going to become more sophisticated.
As for Yuan, he said he is excited to be heading to Madrid in October for the the International Organisation of Securities Commissions (Iosco) TechSprint 2026 global finals, where they are the only Malaysian team among 16 finalists.
“This will be Iosco’s first-ever TechSprint. Here we will have the opportunity to present DecodeAI to the global security regulator. We are proud to be able to take something we created and showcase it to the rest of the world,” he said.
