The United States Department of Treasury announced on October 17 that it utilized artificial intelligence to recover an impressive $4 billion in fraud and improper payments during the 2024 fiscal year. This represents a remarkable increase compared to the $652.7 million recovered in the previous fiscal year.
By adopting machine learning AI in late 2022, the Treasury has been able to leverage advanced technology to analyze extensive datasets, leading to informed decision-making and improved predictive capabilities. Renata Miskell, a Treasury official, articulated the impact of AI as truly transformative, stating that the strategic utilization of data has significantly enhanced their ability to detect and prevent fraud.
According to Miskell, AI plays a crucial role in uncovering hidden patterns and anomalies that fraudsters employ to exploit the system. Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Wally Adeyemo underscored the agency’s ongoing commitment to acting as responsible stewards of taxpayer money. The Treasury is responsible for processing approximately 1.4 billion payments every year, with a total value reaching a staggering $6.9 trillion.
Earlier in May, the Treasury had declared its intention to broaden the application of AI, aiming to bolster regulatory and enforcement avenues against financial crimes. The Treasury is part of a broader trend as government agencies increasingly adopt AI technology. In September 2023, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) disclosed that it had begun deploying AI to identify instances of tax evasion through an analysis of large and complex tax returns from hedge funds and law firms.
This wave of technological integration comes at a time when Juniper Research anticipates that online payment fraud could accumulate to over $362 billion by 2028, highlighting an urgent need for robust measures in financial oversight..