Phone spam-fighting startup Hiya rolls out Chrome extension that detects deepfake audio content
Seattle-startup Hiya is joining the growing list of companies using AI against AI to detect misinformation.
Hiya announced the launch Thursday of its Deepfake Voice Detector as a free Google Chrome extension that can identify deepfake audio and video content. The company said it needs just a second of audio to determine if a voice is authentic or generated by a voice cloning tool.
Deepfakes use voice impersonation and video manipulation to make it appear as if notable personalities — especially politicians — are saying whatever the manipulator wants them to say. Advances in technology are making deepfakes harder and harder to detect.
Hiya has already seen AI play a key role in its caller ID, call blocking, and spam protection services where generative AI and robocalls are increasing the risk of fraud. The new tool takes deepfake detection wider, analyzing voice content in multiple languages across social media, news sources and other websites.
According to the company, Hiya’s models are trained to detect subtle audio artifacts unique to AI-generated voices — imperceptible to the human ear but identifiable by machine learning algorithms — and just a second of audio is enough to detect their presence.
The tool was first revealed in July when Hiya acquired deepfake detection company Loccus.ai.
“Deepfakes are becoming harder to detect, making it difficult to discern between real and fabricated content,” Hiya President Kush Parikh said in a statement. “Voice cloning, while an incredible technological innovation, is also being exploited by cybercriminals for scams and even to try to influence major events like elections.”
Hiya said it surveyed 2,000 consumers this year about their exposure to deepfakes, and found that between April and July, one in four people said they’d been exposed to an audio deepfake, with personal voice calls (61%) as the primary risk factor. Social media platforms such as Facebook (22%) and YouTube (17%) were also among the top sources of exposure.
Hiya’s AI Voice Detection technology is used by Seattle-based nonprofit TrueMedia, which is also working to detect deepfakes and combat disinformation ahead of the election. TrueMedia released its tool to journalists, fact-checkers and others earlier this year, before making the no-cost, web-based tool available to everyone in September. Users can share a social media post containing an image, video or audio file and the AI will analyze the content in real time for evidence of manipulation.
True Media and Microsoft are among those who have also created quizzes to test how well people can root out deepfakes.
Hiya was a finalist for Innovation of the Year at this year’s GeekWire Awards. The startup has raised $42.5 million from investors, with its most recent round coming in March 2023 with a $4.7 million investment, according to PitchBook.
The company launched in 2016, spinning out from Whitepages, and is currently ranked No. 12 on the GeekWire 200 list of top-ranked Pacific Northwest startups.