Savi Security, a startup founded by brothers Patrick and Ryan Coughlin, has launched an app designed to shield ordinary consumers from increasingly convincing AI-generated scams delivered via text, email and phone. The company has raised $7 million in seed funding, led by Acrew Capital, and its iPhone and Android app goes live on Tuesday. The launch matters because cheap, powerful generative AI has made sophisticated fraud — once reserved for governments and large corporations — affordable to deploy against everyday people, with US imposter-scam losses reaching $3.5 billion in 2025, triple the 2020 figure.

The company was inspired by a frightening incident in which the founders' mother received a call from a supposed kidnapper, complete with a spoofed caller ID, an AI-cloned version of her daughter's voice and a reference to a local Walmart; the daughter was in fact safe. Savi first tested its detection model through a free, anonymous website called Scam Wise, which has drawn 50,000 submissions and now grows by roughly 10,000 weekly. The paid app screens texts, voicemails and calls, and its standout feature lets users add a live "agent" to listen in on suspicious calls in real time. It costs $8 a month or $63 a year, covering an entire family with no cap on users.