A surge of AI-driven fraud is quietly wrecking ordinary employers and lenders while Silicon Valley watches from its penthouses. San Francisco-based background-check firm Checkr reported its gross revenue jumped 14% to $800 million as companies scramble to detect a flood of AI-generated résumés and forged financial documents.
Checkr’s CEO warns that roughly 40% of the job and loan applications the company reviews now contain inaccurate or faked employment or financial information, with scammers using generative tools like ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini to produce convincing pay stubs and CVs. Businesses that once trusted a handshake and a paper résumé are discovering they’re hiring hollow shells crafted by code rather than honest Americans.
This is how a startup built on vetting Uber drivers turned into a linchpin for national economic integrity: Checkr, which got its start running criminal-record checks for gig workers, has expanded into white-collar identity and income verification and now reports profitability and huge revenues. The company was valued at roughly $5 billion in its last funding round and says net revenues — after certain fees — are substantial, evidence that demand for real verification has never been higher.
Checkr’s recent growth came after a painful reset — the company laid off a significant portion of its staff in early 2024 before pivoting into identity-check services later that year, and it now operates globally in 195 countries with an eye toward an eventual IPO. What started as gig-economy background checks has morphed into a frontline defense against a digital crime wave, and private companies are the ones footing the bill.
Make no mistake: this mess was predictable. Policymakers and tech execs pushed powerful generative AI into the wild without meaningful guardrails, then shrugged when fraudsters weaponized the same tools against everyday Americans and small businesses. Conservatives have long warned that innovation without accountability becomes exploitation, and the Checkr boom is a private-sector reckoning for public-sector negligence.
The national-security angle is equally chilling — Yanisse and others point to state-backed actors and criminal rings using stolen or fabricated identities to land coding jobs and siphon money, with examples tied to North Korean operatives seeking to monetize access to Western platforms. This isn’t just a hiring problem; it’s a security breach that should alarm both parties in Washington and every CEO responsible for protecting their company and customers.
Congress and state legislatures must stop treating tech like a rescue remedy and start treating it like the risk it has proven to be: tighten identity verification standards, require stronger provenance for employment and income documents, and hold platforms and AI developers accountable when their products facilitate widescale fraud. In the meantime, hardworking Americans and honest employers should appreciate firms like Checkr that are stepping into the void, even as we demand politicians stop trading liberty and security for the latest Silicon Valley slogan.
