This week Forbes reported that AI-driven business fraud crossed three billion dollars last year. The technology is good enough now to counterfeit an executive's voice and paste a fake version of their face onto a live video call — one company wired $25 million on the word of a "CFO" who didn't exist. Everywhere you turn, the question is the same: how do you even know what's real anymore?
I'd offer that we were succumbing to counterfeit versions of ourselves long before any technology made it easy. No one has to deepfake us; we manage it on our own. I know, because I have — and it cost my company dearly.
Years back we approached a brand you'd know instantly — a household name — through a relationship one of our board members had. We brought them a creative way to expand their reach, and they were blown away by how we'd handled their brand. The deal was simple: prove we could deliver by building a working sample, and if we did, we'd move forward together. So we made a significant investment and gave it three hard months, built to our standard.
We finished it. We went back to show them — and never got the chance. Crickets. I hate the sound of crickets; it's the worst sound there is. We called, we emailed, we texted — the deafening chirp of an army of crickets. When our board member reached out to his contact, all he got was mumbo jumbo in polished politician-ese. To this day I couldn't tell you what went wrong, or why we got a fist full of crickets for all that work. I hold no ill will — I think most people are doing the best they can. It wasn't a scam. A warm relationship and a verbal commitment just turned to crickets, then to ghosts, and we never even got to press play.
Here's the part I have to own. When we prayed about it, my team felt good about moving forward. I didn't — I'd have been more comfortable waiting for a few things to develop first. But I was hearing a lot of good reasons to keep going, and at the end of the day I made the call to go. When the company took the hit, I asked the questions every leader asks in the dark: Did I miss God? Was I not paying attention to His prompting?
It revealed something about me. No matter how many voices are in the room, only one deserves my utmost attention — God's. I let all the others cloud the one voice inside me. I should have followed the peace, or in this case, the lack of it. Where there is no comfort, there is no Comforter — no peace is its own answer, and I moved anyway. That season I wasn't the man I thought I was: the one who follows that voice and holds the line when the room gets loud. I'd let a counterfeit take my seat.
But God wastes nothing. He uses every setback to grow my character, my understanding of Him, and my relationship with Him — and what I learned about Him, and about me, was worth whatever it cost. So I'm not walking away trusting people less. I'm walking away learning not to doubt His voice in me, and to hold my ground under pressure. Jesus said his sheep know his voice, and a stranger they will not follow (John 10:4-5).
I can't get those months or that money back. But I walked away with something no counterfeit can touch: I know His voice now — and I know the sound of my own excuses dressed up as good reasons. Next time the room gets loud, I won't let the counterfeit drown Him out.
In Christ,
Chad