In an era where technology has democratized both creation and destruction, the average consumer has become the primary target of a sophisticated cyber-warfare apparatus. As generative AI lowers the barrier to entry for digital malfeasance, brothers Patrick and Ryan Coughlin are launching a defensive front: Savi Security.
With a pedigree deeply rooted in high-level enterprise security and consumer tech, the Coughlin brothers are shifting the focus of cyber defense from the data centers of Fortune 500 companies to the personal devices of everyday families. Backed by $7 million in seed funding, the company is launching a suite of mobile applications designed to combat the next generation of AI-driven fraud.
The Genesis of a Mission: A Personal Wake-Up Call
The inspiration for Savi Security was not born in a boardroom, but from a harrowing personal crisis. Two years ago, Patrick Coughlin—who served as the senior vice president of security products at Cisco—received a frantic, terrifying phone call from his mother.
She was in a state of absolute panic. She told Patrick that she had just received a call from a man claiming to have kidnapped his sister. Adding to the authenticity of the nightmare, the caller ID on her mobile phone displayed her daughter’s name. When she answered, she heard her daughter’s voice, accompanied by a blood-curdling scream and a desperate plea: “Mom, they’ve got me. You’ve got to do what they tell you.”
The scammer then took the phone, providing a specific, chilling ultimatum: pay $1,200 immediately, or they would kill her daughter in the parking lot of a local Walmart—a location the mother frequented.
The attacker had successfully spoofed the daughter’s voice, her phone number, and identified personal geographical details that lent the threat an aura of undeniable reality. Fortunately, the mother kept her composure, managed to reach her daughter via a separate line, and confirmed she was safe. The incident was a high-stakes, AI-generated “ghost kidnapping,” a scam that previously would have required a team of specialized criminals to execute.
For Patrick, the incident served as a jarring realization. "What I was thinking, after calming my mom down, was: What has fundamentally changed in the underlying cybercriminal economy?" he reflected. "We are now seeing the same kind of sophistication that I had seen pointed at government agencies and Fortune 500 companies being deployed against the individual consumer."
The Economics of Modern Deception
To understand the necessity of Savi Security, one must analyze the shifting economics of cybercrime. Before the proliferation of Large Language Models (LLMs) and voice-cloning software, high-level scams required significant overhead. To execute a "grandparent scam" or a kidnapping hoax with high fidelity required extensive social engineering, deep research into the target, and expensive, niche technology to spoof biometric identifiers.
Because the cost of entry was high, these operations were reserved for high-value targets—enterprises, government agencies, and wealthy individuals. Today, that barrier has evaporated.
The Democratization of Fraud
Generative AI tools have made the tools of the trade virtually free. Cybercriminals can now scrape social media platforms for just three seconds of audio—a clip of a parent narrating a football game or a teenager laughing on a video—to clone a voice with eerie precision.
"The costs to perpetrate such swindles have become negligible," Patrick Coughlin notes. "We’re creating fraudsters because we’re bringing down the barrier of deceiving people. It’s no longer just organized syndicates; everyday people are being tempted into playing at fraud because the tools are so accessible."
Supporting Data: The Staggering Cost of Impersonation
The statistical reality of this threat is grim. According to recent data from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), consumers reported losing a staggering $3.5 billion to imposter scams in 2025 alone—a figure that has tripled since 2020.
While older Americans have historically been the primary targets of these schemes, the landscape is shifting. Research published by Malwarebytes in late 2025 highlights the increasing vulnerability of Gen Z. Despite being "digital natives," this demographic is targeted with text-based scams at a disproportionate rate, falling victim to them approximately 25% of the time. This suggests that the sophistication of modern AI-driven scams is capable of bypassing even the most digitally savvy populations.
The Savi Security Approach: A Multi-Layered Defense
Savi Security is positioning itself as a modern, AI-powered antivirus for the human element. The company’s growth strategy was rooted in "Scam Wise," a free, anonymous web tool launched four months ago.
From Crowdsourced Data to AI Intelligence
Scam Wise allowed users to upload suspicious texts, emails, and photos without registration. The tool served a dual purpose: it provided an immediate service to the public while generating a massive, real-world dataset to train Savi’s proprietary detection models. With over 50,000 submissions—growing by 10,000 every week—the company has built a robust feedback loop that allows their AI to stay ahead of evolving scam tactics.
The company currently utilizes Google’s Gemini as a core engine, but they have engineered their software on an "AI gateway" architecture. This allows Savi to route specific queries to specialized models, such as those optimized for voice-biometric analysis or deepfake detection, ensuring that the best technology is applied to each specific threat vector.
The Innovation: Live-Call Monitoring
While many existing security apps focus on static blocking (filtering out known malicious numbers or blacklisted URLs), Savi’s primary innovation is real-time intervention.
The Savi mobile app for iOS and Android allows users to invite a "live agent"—a specialized AI listener—to join an active phone call. The system monitors the conversation for behavioral markers, psychological triggers, and linguistic patterns commonly used in social engineering. If the AI detects a scam in progress, it can alert the user in real-time, effectively serving as an on-call security advisor for high-pressure situations.
The Business Model: A Family-First Strategy
In a market saturated with per-user subscriptions, Savi Security is taking a distinct approach. The company charges $8 per month, or a discounted $63 per year, for a plan that covers an entire family.
Crucially, there is no cap on the number of users. One subscription allows a primary account holder to manage the security of their children, spouse, elderly parents, or any other family member. This design acknowledges that security is often a collaborative effort; the most vulnerable family members are often those who require the most oversight from the most tech-literate household members.
Implications: The Future of the "Human Firewall"
The launch of Savi Security, supported by a $7 million seed round led by Acrew Capital (with participation from Magnify Ventures, TTCER, and Resolute Ventures), signals a broader shift in the cybersecurity industry.
As AI-driven attacks become more prevalent, traditional security measures like multi-factor authentication or spam filters are becoming insufficient. The "human firewall"—the ability for an individual to discern reality from a synthetic fabrication—is the final line of defense.
The implications for society are profound. We are entering an era where seeing is no longer believing, and hearing is no longer trusting. As the Coughlin brothers have demonstrated, the solution to AI-driven threats must be AI-driven protection. By providing the tools to analyze, verify, and monitor communications in real-time, Savi Security is attempting to restore a baseline of trust in our digital interactions.
Whether the startup can scale fast enough to keep pace with the rapidly evolving tactics of global cybercriminal networks remains to be seen. However, by focusing on the domestic and personal impact of cybercrime, the brothers have identified a critical pain point that the tech industry has, until now, largely ignored. As the barrier to entry for scammers continues to collapse, the race between those who create the deceptions and those who build the shields is only just beginning.
