Americans can’t spot a deepfake, and that’s a business crisis, not just a consumer problem

Presented by Veriff Americans can’t reliably distinguish real from AI-generated content, and that’s not just a media literacy problem; it’s a direct threat to how businesses verify identity online.New research finds that while many people are aware of deepfakes, their ability to distinguish them from reality is barely better than a coin flip. A 2026 survey conducted by Veriff and Kantar among 3,000 respondents in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Brazil shows Americans scoring just 0.07 on a scale where 0 represents random guessing.If people can’t distinguish authentic visual content, they can’t reliably distinguish authentic identities. In practice, that means the same users interacting with digital services are often unable to tell whether the person on the other side of a scree