Future of online safety: Smarter threats, stronger regulation, and rising consumer expectations shaping the digital landscape

Conversational AI reshaping the online threat landscape for businesses and consumers. “Simultaneously, it is also reshaping the online threat landscape in unprecedented ways. As organisations navigate their way through these digital crossroads, one thing is unmistakably clear that AI has emerged as both friend and foe.

While it is improving the customer experience by enabling intelligent and automated communication, it also enables threat actors to make realistic phishing attempts and generate highly convincing deepfakes,” says Paritosh Gandhi, Sales Director, India, Infobip in an exclusive interaction with Bizz Buzz

How is conversational AI reshaping the online threat landscape for businesses and consumers?

Conversational AI is driving significant transformations in how businesses engage with their customers. Simultaneously, it is also reshaping the online threat landscape in unprecedented ways.

As organizations navigate their way through these digital crossroads, one thing is unmistakably clear that AI has emerged as both friend and foe. While it is improving the customer experience by enabling intelligent and automated communication, it also enables threat actors to make realistic phishing attempts and generate highly convincing deepfakes, including senior leaders and customer support representatives.

Attacks are no longer limited to email. They now span WhatsApp, voice calls, SMS, and in-app messaging, making it significantly harder for consumers to detect what is real and what is malicious. This is reflected in the broader risk environment. In 2025, Indian organizations sustained over 2,000 cyberattacks per week.

The scale of these attacks makes it clear that the challenge is no longer merely attack prevention, but also preserving consumer trust across every digital interaction.

For businesses, this means security must extend into communication itself through verified sender identities, authentication layers, and secure channels.

At Infobip, we enable enterprises with advanced authentication and fraud prevention solutions that help reduce spoofing and strengthen trust at scale. Continuous employee awareness training is equally critical, as many breaches still originate from a single deceptive message.

Why is digital trust emerging as a critical priority for organisations in today’s digital-first economy?

The digital-first economy is fundamentally built on data. Organisations today rely on data not only for compliance but to drive decision-making, personalise engagement, and deliver seamless customer experiences. As a result, trust has become the true currency of digital business.

Consumers are also far more aware of how personal information is collected and used. Over 85% of internet users seek greater control over their personal data, making privacy a customer expectation, not just a legal requirement.

In India, this shift is being reinforced by the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) framework and the Rules introduced in 2025.

These bring more clarity around consent management, accountability, individual rights, and breach reporting. Penalties are significant, and steep fines can be imposed for certain security failures and lapses, such as breach notification delays or inadequate safeguards for children’s data. This positions privacy as a board-level business risk.

Infobip adheres to global privacy laws, including GDPR, CCPA, and POPIA, and our privacy program is built on GDPR’s high standards. We view DPDP as an opportunity for businesses to adopt privacy-first practices and strengthen customer loyalty and brand credibility in an increasingly digital economy.

What role do secure communication channels play in building a safer internet?

Most cyber threats begin with a message, a fake OTP prompt, a spoofed customer support chat, or a phishing link designed to look legitimate. As engagement expands across SMS, WhatsApp, email, voice, and in-app messaging, the ability to verify who is speaking to you becomes a primary line of defence.

RCS (Rich Communication Services) plays an important role here. It brings verified sender identity into the native messaging inbox, helping users distinguish genuine brand communication from scams. Trust directly impacts engagement, with 88% of consumers trusting a message more if it carries a verified company badge.

Studies have also shown that RCS makes 70% of them engage with a brand, and it translates into performance too. RCS messages’ open rates reach approximately 72%, with some high-performing use cases reaching up to 51% click-through rate.

Additionally, with Apple’s adoption of RCS, the channel is growing and projected to reach approximately 3.8 billion monthly active users by the end of 2026.

In practice, secure channels are not just a security layer; they are the trust layer that enables digital adoption to grow safely, and companies operating large scale, like Infobip, play a crucial role in empowering enterprises by deploying secure messaging experiences.

How can enterprises balance seamless customer experiences with stronger security measures?

Enterprises today are expected to deliver customer experiences that are instant and frictionless. The real challenge is strengthening protection without adding customer drop-offs or delays.

This is where network intelligence and secure communication infrastructure become critical. Telecom networks are evolving beyond connectivity into smart ecosystems capable of supporting real-time identity verification and fraud detection.

Network APIs enable enterprises to securely access operator-level signals such as number verification, SIM swap detection, device location confirmation, and KYC validation using trusted telecom data.

Instead of relying only on OTPs, which are increasingly vulnerable to interception and social engineering, businesses can verify users silently through the network.

Number verification APIs can confirm phone number ownership instantly, SIM swap detection can flag fraud risks before a transaction, and device location APIs can add protection without disrupting the user experience.

At Infobip, we help enterprises and mobile operators operationalise these capabilities through secure, developer-friendly network APIs aligned with CAMARA and the GSMA Open Gateway framework.

We also emphasize business continuity and disaster recovery through redundancy and failover capabilities to ensure services remain available even during disruptions. Customer experience will not be defined by speed alone, but by how effectively enterprises can deliver speed with trust.

Looking ahead, what key trends will define the future of online safety and digital trust?

The future of online safety and digital trust will be shaped by smarter threats, stronger regulation, and rising consumer expectations. Trust will no longer be assumed. It will have to be continuously proven.

One defining trend will be the rapid evolution of AI-driven cybercrime. Deepfake fraud, impersonation scams, and AI-powered phishing will become harder to detect. At the same time, organizations will increasingly use AI for defence, deploying automation and real-time intelligence to detect anomalies and respond faster than traditional models.

Another major trend will be the expansion of verified communication ecosystems. Channels like WhatsApp and RCS will play a larger role, but the focus will shift toward verified sender identity, authentication layers, and end-to-end encryption to ensure customers can trust what they receive.

Data privacy will also become central. It is now a business risk issue tied to reputation, customer loyalty, and resilience. While adhering to global privacy laws (GDPR, CCPA, and POPIA, supported by a GDPR-led privacy program), we, at Infobip, follow strict data segregation practices.

Our solutions, such as Anam Protect Firewall and advanced authentication capabilities, help enterprises prevent fraud and secure customer communication at scale. In this landscape, privacy-first security will become a competitive differentiator, not just a compliance requirement.