For Fraud Awareness Week last week, we had the privilege of working alongside Surrey Police to create a bold and innovative campaign highlighting the importance of staying vigilant against fraud. Fraud is now the most common crime in the UK, impacting individuals and businesses alike — and awareness is one of the strongest tools we have to combat it.
The Ask: A Fresh, Thought-Provoking Way to Warn the Public
Surrey OPCC approached us with a clear and ambitious brief:
Raise awareness of the growing threat of AI-driven fraud in a way that feels fresh, bold and thought-provoking, while staying authentic to their tone and public-facing platforms.
The central creative challenge?
To produce a deepfake of Police and Crime Commissioner Lisa Townsend that was convincing, surprising and ultimately disarming — allowing residents to experience first-hand just how realistic fraud can appear.
Our Approach: Creating a Safe, Ethical Deepfake to Educate the Public
To bring this idea to life, we used an ethical AI production pipeline designed specifically for transparency and public education.
Our process included:
Collecting approved reference footage from the internet
Training a custom AI model to replicate facial movements and expressions
Carefully aligning voice, motion and visual integrity
Building narrative framing that ensures viewers understand the purpose and context
Rigorous internal testing to maintain accuracy without crossing ethical boundaries
The result was a video that feels startlingly real — and intentionally unsettling — without ever misleading the public about its purpose.
I caught up with our creative director to ask him all about the project:
Phoebe - "So what was the Brief?"
Trey - "The police commissioner of Surrey came to us with a very strange ask, it was to create a believable deepfake of their police commissioner talking about a financial scam. At first, we were thinking is this legit? It seems like a really weird ask, but it was for their scam week to show people how believable it can be and to raise awareness about the capabilities of AI and deepfakes, so they should always be wary."
Phoebe - "What have you learned about this project?"
Trey - "I think the biggest overall learning is that it’s another example where necessity is the mother of all invention. We said yes to this, and I wasn’t fully sure if we could do it, but we said yes anyway, and by saying yes, it pushed us to come up with solutions and innovations in our work, which we will now use from now on."
Phoebe - "What was the hardest thing about the project description?"
Trey - "The hardest thing about it was making it fully believable. We needed Lisa, a police commissioner, to believe that she was delivering this speech and that her regular viewers and the people would think it was her as well.
Trey - "I think that the first big win was when we sent tests of cloning Lisa’s voice, and the woman who usually records Lisa’s voice for her media said I don’t remember recording that with Lisa and she was totally fooled - that's when you know we’ve got this clone of Liza’s voice very accurately."
Phoebe - "Was there another challenge?"
Trey - "One of the main challenges was what was set to us by the police. We couldn’t have Lisa help us train AI to create it. We had to use only the things that were available to us and to anybody on the web - to grab pictures, of her voice, bits of her video, to create it to be as genuine as possible about creating a deepfake just from what’s available online, so that was quite a challenge"
The Impact: A Campaign That Surpassed Expectations
The film launched on Monday, 10th November, and has already generated remarkable engagement:
Nearly 25,000 views
51 shares across social media
The most successful piece of content Surrey Police has ever released
Surrey Police also hosted a public activation event in Woking’s main shopping centre, where the deepfake video played on loop to demonstrate the technology’s realism. Officers spoke directly with 230 members of the public, raising awareness of how easily AI can be used fraudulently — and how to stay protected.
The campaign has also been featured in multiple regional press outlets, further extending its reach and impact.
Proud Partners in Prevention
We’re incredibly proud to support Surrey Police and the OPCC on this important initiative. By using AI to educate — not mislead — we’ve helped spark meaningful conversations about online safety, digital trust and fraud prevention.
This campaign is just the beginning. As AI evolves, so must our efforts to ensure the public understands both its potential and its risks.
Check it out below and let us know what you think.
Check out more of our AI projects on our website: AI Page