Report: AI use grows, but so do fraud teams
Despite near-universal AI adoption among fraud and compliance leaders, fraud teams are still growing in size, according to a new report from SEON. The global survey of over 1,000 professionals found that rising headcounts and bigger budgets are coinciding with the implementation of AI, suggesting automation is augmenting rather than replacing human expertise.
- The SEON report, which surveyed 1,010 fraud and compliance leaders, found that while 98% of organizations use AI, 94% plan to increase headcount in 2026, up from 88% in 2025. The primary driver is that rising fraud complexity and fragmented data systems are outpacing the gains from automation alone. - In adtech, generative AI is a growing threat, used to create fake websites with laundered content at scale to generate fraudulent ad impressions. The global cost of digital advertising fraud is projected to reach $172 billion by 2028, a sharp increase from $88 billion in 2023. - For a growth-stage B2B SaaS CTO, the role evolves from a hands-on coder to a strategic leader who aligns technology with business outcomes, contributes to go-to-market strategy, and manages the engineering budget and vendor relationships. Scaling the engineering organization from 15 to 50+ people requires implementing formal processes like performance reviews and defining distinct career tracks for individual contributors and managers. - A key trend is the rise of AI agents and agentic workflows, which are autonomous AI systems that can manage complex, multi-step tasks and adapt in real-time with minimal human oversight. Gartner predicts that by 2028, one-third of all enterprise software applications will include agentic AI to enable more autonomous decision-making. - In the UK programmatic advertising market, a major 2026 trend is a shift away from renting platforms toward owning technology. Agencies and media buyers are increasingly adopting white-label DSPs to gain full control over margins, data, and pricing. - A separate study on AI in financial services found that professionals who use AI daily are far more effective, with 87% reporting they catch multiple fraud patterns compared to just 43% of infrequent users. These power users also see tangible career benefits, representing 71% of all pay raises above 10%. - The UK tech startup ecosystem saw a 6.58% rise in funding in the first two months of 2026 compared to the same period in 2025, reaching $4.17 billion. This follows a broader trend where the UK, despite an 11% dip in 2025, remained the second-highest funded country for tech globally.
