The CEO and co-founder of UK fraud detection platform, Pasabi, has addressed delegates at the Marketplace Risk Management Conference alongside key speakers from Uber, Google and eBay.

The event, which took place in San Francisco this week, saw tech entrepreneur Chris Downie of Pasabi address attendees about the rising threat posed by fake reviews, which have flooded the internet. Mr Downie’s presentation, entitled “Why Behavioural Analytics Beats Content Analysis For Fighting Fake Reviews” was delivered in partnership with Anoop Joshi, VP, Legal & Platform Integrity, of review platform Trustpilot.

“The fake review epidemic now directly influences over $152 billion of online spending every year,” warned Chris Downie, CEO & co-founder of fraud detection platform Pasabi.

“The emergence of easy-to-use and sophisticated AI tools, such as ChatGPT, means that fraudsters now have the capability to flood the market with even more convincing fake reviews, misleading consumers and businesses.

“Regulators around the globe are beginning to crack down on this harmful practice, and  the time has come for review platforms and marketplaces to take action and tackle the issue as a top priority. Key to this effort is having the right technology partners in place that can look beyond content and use behavioural analytics and continual monitoring to identify fake reviews and the bad actors behind them,” added Downie.

Pasabi, which is based in Edinburgh and is backed by AWS specialist VeUp, also unveiled the company’s global expansion plans, which include increased investment in its technology platform and global hires in the US.