Enterprise Losses from AIT to Halve Over the Next Five Years

A new study from Juniper Research has found that the global cost of Artificially inflated traffic (AIT) to enterprises is set to decline by 55% between 2024 and 2029. It was discovered that these losses peaked at $2.1 billion in 2023 and will fall owing to A2P SMS traffic migration.

To accomplish this reduction, the study identified two key drivers for stakeholders:

1. A2P SMS Traffic Migration

Recent termination price rises for SMS, partly caused by AIT, have driven enterprises to explore alternative channels for mobile authentication, such as Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) and Rich Communications Services (RCS). The report forecasts that global A2P SMS traffic will fall from 1.9 trillion in 2023, to below 1.5 trillion by 2029; leading to a less valuable proposition for fraudsters and reducing enterprise losses.

2. Enterprises Must Block AIT at the Source

AIT prevention vendors’ efforts to reduce fraud must focus on working directly with enterprises to verify One-Time Password (OTP) requests before they reach the MNO. The study found that automated bots playing a substantial role in creating AIT and placing safeguards at the point of origin will eliminate this traffic before it reaches SMS networks.

“Traditional CAPTCHA mechanisms are no longer adequately blocking intelligent AI bots from requesting OTPs. Click monitoring and behavioral analysis will enhance an enterprise’s ability to detect bots and reduce AIT fraud before the SMS request,” remarked research author Georgia Allen.