Digital Authenticity Can Power Economic Growth

Mounir Ibrahim is Chief Communications Officer and Head of Public Affairs at Truepic. Truepic is a founding member of C2PA and an affiliate of FS-ISAC.

These days, consequential decisions are regularly made behind a screen, often based on an image, video, or audio file. Yet the threats of an information environment rife with AI-generated media—from social unrest to AI-driven scams, deepfakes, and corporate fraud—are increasingly well known. These risks, once theoretical, now occur daily and at scale.

As governments and regulators confront the risks of generative AI, digital authenticity has emerged as a core policy priority. The ability to verify whether a piece of content is real or synthetic has been critical in policy responses to AI. Provenance, image, and data authentication technologies are increasingly viewed as critical infrastructure for transparency online. While not a silver bullet to all deceptive content, they are a tool in helping decipher the origins of digital media. From legislation initiatives to tech-initiated commitments, content authenticity is moving to the center of global digital governance efforts.

However, it is important to view image authenticity not only as a safety measure but also as a driver of digital transformation and efficiency. When services, businesses, and governments can instantly verify the integrity of what they see and receive, everything works better. Transactions move faster, services become cheaper, trust deepens, and new capabilities are unlocked. Embedding authenticity into digital systems does more than help guard against threats—it grows stronger economies and more agile institutions. All of this will advance American competitiveness and economic growth in the AI era.

Digital transformation challenged

The rise of smartphones, platforms, and apps transformed nearly every aspect of life, including dating, food delivery, home and car rentals, insurance claims, loan verification, government services, and even disaster response. The benefits were clear: convenience, speed, and scale. And in many ways, technology delivered. Thanks to these digital systems, much of the world weathered the worst days of the pandemic.

But cracks are now emerging and amplified with the rise of AI. These threats span personal scams to systemic fraud—Microsoft’s Cyber Signals report, for example, warns of fabricated storefronts and reviews created by bad actors using AI. In hiring, companies are reverting to in-person interviews due to deepfake risks. Deloitte estimates that, by 2027, generative AI could drive US fraud losses to $40 billion, up from $12.3 billion in 2023. Such fraud touches quite literally every industry that relies on digital systems today.

Image and data authentication

Organizations facing these challenges are becoming more vigilant and striving to verify the digital content they rely on. From biometric data and provenance information to synthetic media detection, a range of defensive tools are being explored. Among them, image and data authenticity—often referred to as provenance information—has emerged as a critical solution for distinguishing authentic from synthetic content. This approach ensures that content is verified, authentic, and accompanied by accurate metadata, giving reviewers clear, high-integrity information at a glance. It is gaining momentum, backed by a growing coalition of technology leaders through a global, interoperable standard known as the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA). Most recently, in his testimony to the US Senate, Microsoft President Brad Smith noted that the C2PA is a leading standard tackling these issues. “It enables people to know where something was created, who created it,” said Smith. This concept is entering the financial industry’s zeitgeist and being introduced into other industry-specific coalitions like the Financial Services Information Sharing and Analysis Center (FS-ISAC).

However, it is critical to begin viewing the ability to verify digital content not just through the lens of security, but as an opportunity. The power to confirm whether images, videos, and audio are authentic—backed by verified time, date, and location data—instills the confidence needed to accelerate and expand operations in almost any industry. This verification doesn’t just reduce risk; it enables organizations to move faster, scale with certainty, and unlock compounding benefits across efficiency, trust, and speed.

Early adopters proving efficacy

We have held this belief at Truepic since the company’s inception. In the past twelve months, we have seen a significant increase in demand for embedded authentication into digital workflows—for opportunity, not just safety.

Some of the earliest adopters of image and data authentication have been in financial services, particularly in sectors driven by time-sensitive transactions such as lending, insurance underwriting, claims, and warranty or recall assessments. In all scenarios, images of assets or locations are being assessed to disperse funds from one entity to another. What has often been missing is assurance that those images accurately reflect the reality being presented by the borrower or claimant. A group of experts assembled by Tech Policy Press (of which I was a participant) recently agreed that provenance information has particular utility today in the private sector, noting that “provenance and labeling might be most useful and readily adopted are in enterprise domains where businesses depend on trusted communications and/or need to secure consumer trust.”

Historically, enterprises faced a tradeoff: digitized workflows offered speed, but without trusted verification, they opened the door to fraud. On the other hand, in-person inspections delivered accuracy but introduced delays, high costs, and inefficiencies. This dilemma stifles growth and innovation in financial services and other industries, including government services.

Image and data authentication closes that gap, bringing the speed of digital processes together with the trustworthiness of verified content. For example, recent studies show that image and data authentication dramatically reduce fraud and streamline operations in high-stakes industries. In the auto warranty sector, authenticated images have helped prevent false claims, such as the reuse of old or manipulated photos, and cut processing times by nearly 70%. In business credentialing, similar technology has reduced wait times by nearly 80%, replacing slow, manual inspections with secure, real-time verification.

It’s not just about saving time—image authenticity plays a critical role in fraud prevention. In the auto warranty industry, this technology has uncovered large-scale deception, including entire fraud networks reusing pre-existing images to file thousands of falsified claims (often referred to as the “golden part”). By validating visual evidence at the point of capture, organizations can identify and stop fraud before it enters their systems. In this way, image and data authentication deliver a total package, combining the speed of digital workflows with the accuracy of verified inspections. It empowers organizations to operate faster in new locations or with unknown parties because the technology becomes the neutral third party, increasing trust.

Imagine the possibilities

If financial services can reduce fraud and accelerate decisions with authentication, what could this enable across other sectors? Supply chains, law enforcement, emergency response, and international aid often depend on reliable visual and digital data. Embedding authentication into those workflows could unlock speed, efficiency, and resilience at scale. Now, imagine local and federal governments adopting the same tools—verifying businesses, assets, and professional identities with precision. Services could be delivered faster, taxpayer dollars could be deployed more effectively, government capacity could be expanded, and fraud could be identified before damage is done. Authenticity is no longer optional—it’s the infrastructure that will define whether digital progress delivers prosperity or peril.