In a recent video uploaded on social media platforms X (previously known as Twitter) and Instagram, Zerodha CEO Nithin Kamath highlighted concerns about the growing threat posed by AI technology and deepfakes to the financial services industry.

However, at the end of the video clip, Kamath stated that the guy in the video was not him but a deepfake. The Zerodha CEO discusses the issue of authenticating customer identities while onboarding a new customer in the viral video clip.

Concerned about the increasing sophistication of deepfakes, Kamath notes that while registering an account, the standard practice is to obtain the ID or address proof data from the source via Digilocker and/or Aadhaar. Also, use a webcam to match the face from this ID proof. According to Kamath, the increasing sophistication of deepfakes is making it difficult to distinguish between genuine people and AI-generated replicas during account openings.

"However, as deepfakes improve, I believe it will become increasingly difficult to determine whether the person on the other end is real or artificially generated." This issue would be exacerbated for banks with more strict regulatory obligations during onboarding," Kamath says in the video. Kamath also discusses the issue's future regulatory evolution.

"It will be interesting to see how the regulations evolve around this." Returning to the physical method of opening accounts will halt the entire sector's growth." At the end of the video, Kamath surprises the viewers by saying, "And in this video, it isn't me; it is my deep fake AI avatar."