News FBI IC3 AI Cybercrime Report 2026

The FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) released its 2025 Annual Report on April 6, 2026, documenting for the first time AI-enabled cybercrime as a dedicated category. The report logged 22,364 AI-related complaints with $893 million in associated losses, marking a watershed moment in the recognition of AI as a tool for fraud and cybercrime.

Overall Cybercrime Trends

The 2025 IC3 report documented over 1 million total complaints with $20.877 billion in losses, representing a 26% increase from 2024. Cyber-enabled fraud dominated, comprising approximately 85% of losses ($17.7 billion from approximately 453,000 complaints). Investment fraud (often cryptocurrency-related) accounted for $8.648 billion, and business email compromise (BEC) accounted for $3.046 billion.

Ransomware complaints reached 3,611 with $32.32 million in losses, a 259% increase from 2024, with 63 new variants identified.

AI-Specific Findings

This is the first IC3 report in its 25-year history to include a dedicated AI section, underscoring AI's shift from an edge case to a core fraud driver.

AI-Enabled Fraud Types

The report documents several categories of AI-enabled fraud:

• Business Email Compromise (BEC) with AI component: Over $30 million in losses, as AI generates context-specific, high-quality emails for impersonation and sustained scams
• Impersonation scams: AI creates realistic identities, tones, and scenarios (e.g., impersonating government officials, executives, or vendors) for trust-building in investment fraud and social engineering
• Investment and sustained fraud: AI adapts messaging over time to build credibility in high-loss schemes such as cryptocurrency scams
• AI-generated phishing emails: AI enhances email quality, tone-matching, and sustained impersonation, lowering barriers for threat actors
• Synthetic video and voice cloning: AI-generated deepfake video content and cloned voices used in fraud schemes

Underreporting Concerns

The report acknowledges that AI-related losses are likely significantly underreported, as victims often fail to recognize AI involvement in fraud schemes. The true scale of AI-enabled cybercrime may be substantially larger than the documented $893 million.

Regulatory Implications

The report's dedicated AI section has significant implications for AI regulation:

• It provides empirical data supporting regulatory efforts targeting AI misuse in BEC, impersonation, and scalable fraud
• It signals the need for victim awareness campaigns and AI-detection tools, as AI obscures its own involvement
• International cooperation is highlighted, with FBI-CBI operations yielding 175 arrests
• The data supports policies requiring AI watermarking, provenance tracking, and detection mechanisms in AI-generated content

See Also

• Deepfake regulation coverage on AI Law Wiki