Winning the Robocall War: How 2026 Will Reshape Robocall Prevention

The collective fight against robocall bad actors begins 2026 at a critical juncture. While STIR/SHAKEN has curbed some scam volume, the limits of call signing protocols have been exposed and are being exploited by bad actors to power new waves of robocall attacks.

With these weaknesses in STIR/SHAKEN identified and the ongoing arms race between both sides as it relates to AI technologies, the telecom industry faces formidable challenges – and emerging opportunities in the new year. Here are five developments we expect to play out with scam and spam robocalls – and efforts to combat them – throughout 2026. Even with these weaknesses in STIR/SHAKEN, it has made it easier to identify where the bad traffic has originated but is after the scam has been perpetrated.

1. Collective Stakeholder Action Will Limit STIR/SHAKEN Gaps

The past year spotlighted the limitations of STIR/SHAKEN’s call signing protocols through improper attestation and further exacerbated the gap in IP connectivity between Tier-1 carrier networks, intermediary providers that still utilize TDM and smaller operators. The result is inconsistent call authentication as well as the difficulty to identify robocall bad actors’ malicious traffic from the first call. This vulnerability has afforded bad actors an opening and opportunity to continue their malicious robocall attacks, while simultaneously leveraging AI-generated technologies to make these unwanted calls more difficult to identify.

To close this opening, each industry stakeholder group — regulators, carriers, policymakers and industry providers – has a role to play.

Over the last several years, TNS has observed success with signed call traffic between both Tier-1 operators and smaller carriers. Throughout the first half of 2025, 84% of all call traffic between top US telecom providers (Verizon, UScellular, T-Mobile, Lumen, Comcast, Charter and AT&T) was signed and verified with STIR/SHAKEN protocols, but only 21% of calls were signed when originating from non-tier-1 carriers.

In addition, TNS honeypot data shows that scams are A-level attested over 50% of the time and TNS production traffic shows 43% of spam traffic is A-level attested. The FCC also saw the proliferation of improper “A”-level attestations firsthand when it issued a Notice of Apparent Liability to Lingo Telecom, LLC for applying improper “A”-level attestations to 3,978 spoofed robocalls carrying a deepfake generative AI voice message purporting to be from then President Joe Biden.

Carriers must continue to focus on ways to move away from legacy TDM infrastructure. If they rely on those end-of-life platforms, there will be limits to traceback efforts for malicious call traffic. To that end, the FCC is committed to facilitating multiple avenues for smaller carriers to meet IP connectivity requirements.

On the policy front, momentum should continue to build on ongoing initiatives like the Foreign Robocall Elimination Act, a bipartisan bill that seeks to establish firmer enforcement mechanisms for foreign-originating traffic.

STIR/SHAKEN established a valuable foundation to combat robocalls but it was never meant as a silver bullet. All industry stakeholders have a role to play in accelerating the transition away from TDM infrastructure and enacting regulatory measures that demand clearer accountability for carriers routing unsigned or suspicious call traffic as the industry works to further diminish unwanted robocall volume.

Continued focus on consistent attestation practices, improved Know Your Customer (KYC)/Know Your Business (KYB) procedures, and strengthened enforcement partnerships will collectively help support STIR/SHAKEN to perform effectively as part of a comprehensive strategy to combat illegal robocalls and related scams.

2. Multi-Pronged Fraud Attempts Will Proliferate

Generative AI has afforded bad actors the opportunity to further disguise and complicate efforts to prevent their attacks. These attacks often take the form of multi-pronged scams, where bad actors contact targets first through one channel before quickly following up through other channels.

The onslaught of Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) or Department of Transportation (DOT) scam attacks on consumers’ mobile devices is a prime example. In these campaigns, bad actors impersonate government organizations through SMS messages followed by coordinated phone outreach, making the scams seem more believable. These DOT hybrid scams demonstrated how fraudsters can exploit confusion around unpaid tolls to capture personal data or payment credentials in scams that blend text, voice and fraudulent landing pages.

The high-profile ransomware attack by Interlock on Kettering Health proved even more elaborate, signaling a new phase in how ransomware groups take down critical corporations and target patients/customers. Notably with Kettering, the group followed its ransomware attack by launching scam calls and texts – an integrated strategy leveraging a systemwide IT outage when patients could not reach staff or the patient support call center lines. In this chaotic period, the group impersonated Kettering Health team members and requested credit card payments for medical expenses.

3.Investment In Voice Security Will Trickle Down to Smaller Banks

Financial services institutions will face heightened spoofing risks in 2026 as impersonation scams continue to target their customers. While Tier-1 banks are accelerating adoption of spoof protection solutions like branded calling and call verification solutions, large segments of the financial industry remain vulnerable.

Credit unions and regional banks are susceptible to fraud as they often lack budget and resources to combat sophisticated tactics and technologies (AI deepfakes, etc.) used by cyber criminals. They have struggled to protect what remains the core communication channel used by customers – the voice channel.

But as spoof protection technologies have become more accessible, downstream adoption will likely accelerate in the months ahead. Financial institutions of all sizes, now in the crosshairs, are tracking large bank deployments and seeing their tangible results in blocking spoofed calls and restoring customer confidence in the voice channel.

4. Enterprise Call Centers Will Be Increasingly Targeted With AI Attacks

The balance of AI-driven impersonation attacks and fraud campaigns will tilt towards the enterprise.

Bad actors have been active in refining AI-enabled synthetic voice by engaging in reconnaissance, targeting companies to see if they can penetrate IVR and voice prompt systems. Expect the fruit of their labor to test high-touch organizations in 2026, shifting a heavy burden to contact center leaders and the C-Suite to guard their customer-facing operations against synthetic speech with realistic cadence and emotional cues and even to produce deepfake video conferencing content.

To succeed in this increasingly difficult landscape, enterprises will need to embrace voice authentication to stay ahead of this new class of inbound threats.

5. The Industry Must Validate AI Tools – Not Just Deploy Them

The conversation around AI solutions will evolve from deployment to rigorous validation. As AI systems become more complex, so does the need to test and validate their performance using sophisticated tools and methods.​

Telecom operators and enterprises will increasingly demand transparency on how AI systems work, how they are trained and their success rate in identifying synthetic fraud. For example, a red team (adversarial testing) should be used to validate whether a supplier implemented what they said or claimed they would​. Combined with synthetic data, this methodology can stress test AI tools prior to the product release.​

As robocalls, robotexts and AI-generated fraud escalate, 2026 will demand more stringent enforcement, an increased emphasis on IP connectivity and a greater focus on validating AI tools meant to defend the ecosystem. As the stakes continue to rise, the telecom industry must evolve just as quickly.