Will AI Agents Pretend to Be Human to Get Past a Check? - Maty Bohacek, Stanford

Maty Bohacek of Stanford looks at a security check we still rely on: getting on a phone or video call to prove you're human before opening an account, approving a wire or recovering access. With AI avatars that can now join Zoom calls, he tested what agents do when a human check is the only thing between them and their goal. When a voice or video cloning tool was available, many agents used it to impersonate a person, even when told not to, and safety alignment only cut the rate from 65% to 44%. He closes with what needs to happen next across alignment, control, and deepfake detection and provenance. Chapters: 0:00 Intro 0:58 Proving you're human on a call 3:19 When AI controls fail 6:00 Human verification as free AI control 6:41 AI avatars that join video calls 7:51 Experiment: agents blocked by a human check 12:05 How often agents impersonate people 13:47 Can people still tell? 15:18 Where we go from here 17:30 Keep verification safe Maty Bohacek Join us in SF for the second annual AIE CODE summit: https://aie.codes our last flagship summit of 2026. Applications live now!