AI-Powered Hackers

In its recent piece, The Economist warned that AI is dramatically lowering the barrier for cybercrime: enabling more convincing phishing attacks, deepfake voice fraud, automated credential stuffing, and other impersonation schemes. Losses are mounting into the billions annually, with the pace accelerating as generative AI tools become more powerful and widely available. Traditional defenses such as passwords, SMS-based verification, and MFA apps are increasingly insufficient against these threats.

“AI has supercharged fraud. It is no longer the lone hacker, but fleets of AI-driven tools impersonating identities at scale, draining accounts, and compromising enterprises.” — The Economist, 2025

Google’s Bet on Wiz

Google recently acquired Wiz for approximately $32 billion, underscoring the premium placed on next-generation security platforms. Wiz has made its name as a cloud security posture management (CSPM) company, scanning enterprise cloud environments for misconfigurations, vulnerabilities, and compliance issues. It has been effective in helping organizations identify risks in their infrastructure.

Yet Wiz is not an authentication company. Its tools do not serve as a universal clearinghouse for identity or transaction-level trust. In the world The Economist describes—where AI is impersonating individuals at scale—Wiz mitigates some risks, but does not address the fundamental challenge of verifying identity.

The Aligned Trust Solution

Aligned Trust is a patented framework built specifically for the challenge identified by The Economist. Unlike Wiz, which focuses on cloud posture, Aligned Trust:

  • Operates as a global clearinghouse for authentication, covering humans, devices, IoT, and bots.
  • Uses Over-the-Shoulder (OTS) Architecture: automated, AI-driven analysis of contextual data (location, device profile, prior history) in near time to validate identity.
  • Anchors every transaction to a Unique Global Identifier (UGI), creating permanent enrollment and reducing friction for true users.
  • Reduces massive costs: For example, Facebook spends approximately $10 billion annually on SMS-based verification. Aligned Trust provides a path to eliminate such expenditures while strengthening security.
  • Patent-protected moat: The architecture and universal database are legally protected, meaning competitors must license or risk infringement.

Inherent Value

  • Market Fit: The Economist highlights identity as the new battleground. This is Aligned Trust’s native domain.
  • Comparables: Wiz fetched $32B without solving identity. Aligned Trust, by directly addressing the AI-driven fraud epidemic, is valued in the range of $50B–$70B+.
  • Scalability: Every digital transaction is a revenue opportunity. With per-transaction royalties (fractions of a cent to a few cents), the system scales to billions of transactions daily.
  • Strategic Imperative: For companies like Meta, IBM, Microsoft, or financial networks, Aligned Trust represents both a cost-saving and risk-reducing necessity—and a chance to prevent rivals from owning the universal trust layer.

Conclusion: The Economist describes a world where AI-enabled fraud is destabilizing financial and digital systems. Wiz’s sale proves the market’s appetite for security infrastructure. But only Aligned Trust delivers the universal, patented solution that can decisively meet this challenge—making it one of the most valuable opportunities in global technology today.