A SHOPPER clicks on a fund transfer link provided by an online merchant, eager to pay for two luxury watches at jaw-droppingly low prices. Suddenly, alerts pop up via his banking app as cybersecurity systems powered by artificial intelligence (AI) detect the risks of a phishing scam – just in time to avert a devastating act of fraud.

Did AI just save the day? It did complete Herculean feats such as sifting through millions of data points in seconds to detect abnormal activity, but the real heroes here are still humans.

Only people, not machines, can understand and pre-empt the fear tactics and other behavioural strategies deployed by today’s increasingly sophisticated scammers.