Brand Misappropriation in the Age of AI-Powered Scams: What Brands Need to Know

Scams are everywhere, and they are evolving faster than most people realize. What often goes unspoken is how often these scams depend on impersonating trusted brands, and how permanent the damage can be once that trust is broken.

The scale of the problem has become impossible to ignore. In 2023, impersonation scams alone were responsible for $6.8 billion in global losses. More recently, internal documents and investigative reporting have shown that Meta Platforms has allowed scam activity to operate at extraordinary scale across its advertising systems. In 2024 alone, roughly ten percent of Meta’s ad revenue, around sixteen billion dollars, was linked to scam ads and prohibited goods. Users were exposed daily to fake e-commerce, investment, and impersonation scams that often explicitly misused trusted brand identities.

Meta is not unique in facing this problem. The same incentives, ad mechanics, and enforcement trade-offs exist across other major digital platforms, even if equivalent transparency does not. For example, job scam ads were reported to be running on TikTok at scale targeting vulnerable populations in Kenya despite user reports, with fraudulent recruitment offers often impersonating legitimate companies and employers.

It’s important to be clear that platforms are not completely helpless. Credit where credit is due, Meta has taken steps to address brand impersonation and fraud, including rolling out tools like the Brand Rights Protection Tool. Those efforts matter. Separately, in markets where platforms like Meta have been required to adopt stronger advertiser verification and enforcement rules, scam ad volumes have dropped dramatically, in some cases by more than 90 percent, showing early enforcement works.

The real problem is not platform capability, it's speed. What has fundamentally changed is how these scams are created and scaled. Today’s scams are targeted, adaptive, and often indistinguishable from legitimate brand communications. Gen AI allows fraudsters to replicate brand voice and visual identity, generate convincing product imagery, and personalize outreach based on inferred wealth, purchase behavior, location, or emotional vulnerability. Scammers adapt in hours, while enforcement lags days or weeks behind. That gap is exactly where these scams thrive.

What worries me most is not just the speed and scale of these scams, but how hard it has become to tell what is real. AI has all but eliminated the cues people rely on to identify scams. I have spent years working with trust & safety teams and brands on these issues, and even for people who do this for a living, it is getting harder to spot fraud quickly.

There is also a lazy assumption that scams mainly affect older or less tech-savvy users. People who grew up online transact more, move faster, and trust digital experiences by default. In 2021, Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z adults aged 18 to 59 were thirty-four percent more likely than those over sixty to report losing money to fraud. Comfort with technology does not protect you. In many cases, it makes you easier to exploit.

Scammers are not just copying logos. They are borrowing everything a brand has built; tone, visuals, customer service language, delivery notifications, even internal sounding escalation paths. The result is a false sense of legitimacy that draws victims in. When the victim realises they have been scammed, the brand is blamed.

Around sixty-three percent of consumers will blame the authentic brand after an impersonation attack, even when the brand had no involvement. Roughly thirty-eight percent of victims will completely sever ties with a brand after a single scam experience involving its identity. Making matters worse, thirty-seven percent of companies only learn about these attacks through "brand shaming" by impacted customers on social media; yet only six percent have solutions that effectively address the problem.

Scammers are not just stealing money, they are spending trust. Every impersonation converts years of brand investment into leverage criminals can use to steal identities or empty savings accounts. Once that trust is spent, it cannot be restored with a disclaimer or a takedown notice. The logic is simple: If it looked real, sounded real, and behaved the way your brand normally behaves, then you failed to protect your loyal customer. AI has made that conclusion feel increasingly reasonable.

Here's what you and your team should keep an eye out for in 2026:

1. Circular Legitimacy: Scammers build entire ecosystems around your brand, with fake websites, sales, blogs, and news articles all reinforcing each other. By the time customers realize the purchase isn’t real, they think your brand has lost control. Watch for clusters of fake versions of your website, blog and social profiles appearing at the same time.
2. Post-Purchase Hijacking: After legitimate transactions with your brand, customers often get spoofed “customer service” messages from impersonators claiming delivery or customs problems. Scammers obtain this timing information through data breaches, compromised third-party vendors, or malware that intercepts order confirmations. When customers enter their payment details on fake customer service portals, they blame your brand for any fraud that results. If customers start asking about messages or fees you never sent, scammers are likely exploiting your order data.
3. Exclusivity Exploitation: Scammers use Gen AI to copy the visual style, tone, and cultural signals your brand uses to create belonging. They build private Discords or invite-only communities that look authentic, then offer “exclusive access” in exchange for wallet connections or credentials. Proactively monitor for unauthorized private communities using your creative assets, brand language, or leadership references.
4. Recruitment Scams: Fraudsters impersonate executives via deepfakes or fake job postings, targeting freelancers or job seekers with bogus software or credential requests. Public sharing of these experiences damages your credibility. Monitor LinkedIn and professional networks for unauthorized recruiting activity using leadership’s names or likenesses.

These patterns share a common thread: they don't just exploit your brand's assets; they weaponize the trust you've built. None of these trends show signs of slowing down. In 2026, brand misappropriation is not a side effect of scams, it is the mechanism that makes them work. Every day without vigilance is a day your brand's hard-earned trust is being spent by someone else.

In the next article, I'll break down how to actually protect your brand in 2026. That starts with understanding that brand misappropriation and brand misinformation are fundamentally different threats requiring different responses, and why conflating them leaves dangerous gaps in your defense.