At Least 26.9% of Unwanted Inbound Calls Now Open With a Machine Voice, Measured Over 10,987 Honeypot Calls

arXiv 2609.11137·medium signalXBlueskyLinkedInCopy link

The FCC placed AI-generated voices under the TCPA in February 2024, but no peer-reviewed measurement said how much unwanted call traffic is machine-placed or how much of that is synthesized rather than replayed. An interactive voice honeypot using language-model personas on real U.S. numbers recorded 10,987 calls over 66 days, scoring each opening with an audio fingerprint, a commercial synthetic-speech detector, and blinded human listeners. Of 7,233 greeted calls, 13.8% opened with a recording also heard on another call and 13.1% with fresh audio labeled synthetic, giving at least 26.9% machine-voiced openings, with a further 9.9% silent connections and 54.2% fresh audio labeled human.