Mohammed Ridwan, Co-founder & CEO, Pluto

“One key trend in today’s “battle for reality” is how rapidly deepfakes are evolving. We often think of deepfakes as manipulated images, videos or audio clips we encounter on social media, but the technology now extends far beyond that. In 2023, there were roughly half a million deepfake items online; by 2025, that number has surged to an estimated 8.5 million. This exponential rise poses serious risks for governments, institutions, and the public.

Although deepfake detection tools exist, they face fundamental limitations. Deepfake generation can theoretically get infinitely close to reality, while detection has no such upper bound — making it inherently impossible to stay fully ahead. Detection technologies will always function like antivirus software: useful, but perpetually one step behind. What we are seeing, however, is the emergence of innovative policy approaches and government actions aimed at addressing these risks more systematically.”