Apate, an Australian tech firm, deploys nearly 200,000 AI-bot characters globally to impersonate scam victims. These bots waste scammers' time, with one performance metric being the number of swear words directed at them. The company aims to occupy con artists' hours, preventing them from targeting genuine individuals. For instance, Apate's bots collectively wasted over 500 days of scammers' time for a single Australian telco, saving an estimated thirteen million dollars. Beyond time wastage, the bots gather actionable intelligence for banks and telcos to combat scam rings in various regions. Apate's founder, Dali Kaafar, was inspired by a personal experience of stringing along a scammer for 44 minutes. This led to the development of technology to automate scam engagement and extract valuable information at scale. The company secured funding and spun off from Macquarie University in 2023, now collaborating with major banks. Apate's AI bots are sophisticated, possessing distinct personas, vocal tics, and accents, trained on extensive scammer-human interactions. They operate as honeypots on platforms like WhatsApp and Telegram, exploiting scammers' greed. The bots also uncover new cryptocurrency wallet addresses used by scammers, providing crucial intelligence before funds are transferred. As AI scammers become more prevalent, Apate believes defensive AI bots have a strategic advantage in extracting intelligence. This technological arms race offers a favorable outlook for combating widespread scams.