A 76-year-old was about to lose his entire $3 million retirement to a scam. TIAA’s AI caught it—but a human prevented disaster

Artificial intelligence has ushered in a new era for scammers. Within seconds, the technology can clone voices, generate convincing emails, and create realistic deepfakes capable of tricking victims into handing over life savings. Put simply by TIAA CEO Thasunda Brown Duckett on an episode of Fortune’s Titans and Disruptors of Industry podcast: “There are so many scams.” But the same technology is also helping humans detect suspicious behavior before money disappears. Recently, TIAA flagged an unusual request from a 76-year-old customer attempting to withdraw his entire $3 million retirement portfolio. According to Duckett, the retiree had been targeted by a scammer—but the company’s AI system was first to notice something was off. “He was being scammed, but our AI tool flagged it,” she said. A portfolio manager then escalated the out-of-pattern withdrawal to TIAA’s fraud team, which spent hours trying to convince the customer he was being deceived. “The first thing is you don’t want to believe you’ve been scammed,” Duckett said. “You’ve almost been trained to defend the scam.” Eventually, a fraud specialist contacted the man’s daughter, and TIAA stopped the money from moving. “Our participant said to us, ‘You saved my bacon,’” recalled Duckett—who ranked as No. 7 on Fortune’s 2026 Most Powerful Women list. AI is fueling over 1 million scams a year—reinforcing the need for human workers, according to Duckett Even before AI became mainstream, scamming was on the rise. Over $20.8 billion was lost to about 1 million cybercrime complaints in 2025 alone, according to the FBI—with older adults accounting for the largest number of complaints and total losses. In 2024, individuals over 60 years of age lost a staggering $4.8 billion to scams, while those aged 50-59 lost $2.5 billion. In comparison, overall cybercrime losses totaled to just $1 billion in 2015. For Duckett, the case of the 76-year-old—and the broader rise in scams—underscores the continued ne