Alert: AI Is Accelerating Targeted Social Engineering Attacks
KnowBe4, Wednesday, September 16th, 2026
KnowBe4 reports that generative AI is compressing the time and cost of building highly targeted social engineering attacks.
KnowBe4 warns that generative AI has collapsed the effort required to research targets and produce convincing, personalized pretexts at scale.
The post covers automated OSINT collection, voice and writing-style mimicry, and multi-channel campaigns that combine email, SMS, and voice.
It notes that the traditional tells of phishing, such as awkward phrasing, no longer reliably signal fraud. Verification procedures and layered controls are recommended over pattern-spotting training alone.