McAfee announces AI-powered deepfake detection technology enhancements

McAfee has announced enhancements to its AI-powered deepfake detection technology leveraging the power of the NPU in Intel Core Ultra processor-based PCs. The advanced AI-powered technology that underpins McAfee Deepfake Detector (previously known as ‘Project Mockingbird’) made its debut earlier this year amidst consumers' growing concern for identifying deepfake scams and misinformation. The announcement with Intel underscores McAfee's commitment to delivering innovative and powerful online protection solutions that empower consumers to live their lives online with confidence.

The McAfee and Intel collaboration addresses a significant consumer and societal need by helping people discern truth from fiction. 64% of Indians say AI has made it harder to spot online scams. Cybercriminals today often use AI to manipulate the audio on a video to create convincing deepfake scams. McAfee Deepfake Detector uses advanced AI detection techniques including transformer-based Deep Neural Network models expertly trained to detect and notify customers when audio in a video is likely generated or manipulated by AI. McAfee is demonstrating at RSA the significant performance and privacy improvements available when harnessing Intel's AI PC technology.

Leveraging Intel Core Ultra processor's NPU, McAfee's AI models complete inference (the analysis and detection of a deepfake) locally, without needing to send private user information to the cloud. McAfee has measured as much as a 300% performance improvement on the same model by leveraging the NPU. This enhanced performance, combined with the privacy advantages of local model execution, and improved battery life, provides substantial benefits to the customer.

"The collaboration with Intel is further evidence of McAfee's innovative, customer-centric approach. In a world where seeing is no longer believing, where AI-generated deepfakes have made it harder than ever to tell real from fake, consumers need the latest in AI to beat AI," said Steve Grobman, McAfee's Chief Technology Officer. "With Intel, we're now going even one step further in delivering a seamless and robust customer experience. Leveraging Intel's Core Ultra processor technology and its NPU, we can provide consumers with the most advanced and powerful generative AI deepfake detection capabilities, without compromising on performance or privacy. No need to send huge files to the cloud for analysis with detection performed locally, providing even greater peace of mind and control over your data."

“Our partnership with industry leaders like McAfee highlights our commitment to enabling the technology ecosystem to use AI for good,” said Carla Rodríguez, Vice President and General Manager of Ecosystem Partner Enabling at Intel. "We're excited to collaborate with McAfee to help bring to market innovative solutions like McAfee Deepfake Detector which leverages the NPU in Intel Core Ultra processor-based PCs, driving detection of malicious and misleading deepfakes, while delivering optimal performance and privacy."