Vidio leveraged Google Vertex AI & Gemini for billion-rupiah fraud prevention

About the customer

Vidio is Indonesia’s number one streaming platform, offering a diverse range of entertainment, including movies, TV shows, sports, and exclusive original content. With a user-friendly interface, flexible subscriptions, and high-quality streaming, it provides a seamless viewing experience. Continuously innovating, it leverages advanced technology and strategic partnerships to enhance user experience, strengthen security, and combat piracy, ensuring a safe and engaging entertainment hub for its growing audience.

About the program 

The AI for Media Program is a 4-month initiative developed in collaboration between Google Cloud, Avisi (Association of OTT Platforms) and Media accounts. This program, with system integration by Devoteam, aims to create and implement cutting-edge AI solutions within the media industry.

The Challenges

In the competitive world of streaming, Vidio offers exclusive benefits through partnerships with TV brands, including free subscriptions for buyers. However, this perk is often exploited. Users engage in account farming, repeatedly activating free trials by resetting their devices or creating multiple accounts. This widespread abuse threatens Vidio’s revenue and partnership value.

The abuse can lead to several consequences, such as:

• Account Farming & Repeated Activations: Users exploit free trials by repeatedly resetting their devices and creating multiple accounts to gain continuous free access.
• Reselling & Unauthorized Usage: Some users sell free accounts, profiting from Vidio’s partnership perks.
• Revenue & Content Security Risks: Fraudulent activities lead to significant financial losses.
• Distinguishing Legitimate and Fraudulent Users: Difficult to differentiate between genuine customers and abusers.

Vidio proactively sought to upgrade its existing fraud detection capabilities with AI to more effectively combat increasingly sophisticated fraud attempts, involving Devoteam to incorporate Google Vertex AI.

The Solutions 

Devoteam, in collaboration with Google Cloud team utilized Google Cloud’s Vertex AI to build a robust fraud detection system, focusing on analyzing suspicious usage patterns.

To combat the escalating fraud challenges, Vidio partnered with Devoteam in a pilot program and leveraged Google Cloud’s Vertex AI to build a comprehensive, real-time fraud detection system. The solution focused on analyzing user behavior patterns and identifying suspicious activities. Key components of the solution included:

• Actionable Insights with Generative AI:
  • Google Gemini: Used Google Cloud’s gen AI models to assist in the investigation by providing concise summaries of suspicious activity, as well as generating trend reports.
• Data Consolidation and Preparation:
  • Cloud Storage: Provided secure and scalable storage for Vidio’s platform data, including user activity, transaction logs, and content metadata.
  • BigQuery: Enabled efficient ingestion, transformation, and analysis of the data, leveraging its powerful data warehousing capabilities for feature engineering.
    
• Advanced Machine Learning Model Development with Vertex AI Training:
  • Vertex AI Training: Used to develop and train sophisticated machine learning models (including XGBoost and custom models) to identify fraudulent patterns.
  • Hyperparameter Tuning and Automated Model Selection: Leveraged Vertex AI’s capabilities to optimize model performance and ensure accuracy.
    
• Real-Time Fraud Detection and Prevention with Vertex AI Prediction:
  • Vertex AI Prediction: Deployed the trained model for real-time scoring of user activity, enabling immediate identification of suspicious behavior.
  • Cloud Run: Created a serverless API endpoint for seamless integration with other platform systems, allowing for quick action based on predictions.

The Results

During the pilot program, the Google Cloud-powered fraud detection system delivered significant results for Vidio across key areas:

The new system significantly improved Vidio’s ability to detect and prevent fraud, directly contributing to business impact.

• Dramatically Improved Fraud Detection: The AI-powered system  significantly improves fraud detection by considering a broader range of features and variables compared to the previous system, enabling more accurate and comprehensive identification of fraudulent activity
• Minimized Revenue Loss: The solution significantly reduced revenue leakage, with the potential to prevent billions (IDR) in losses per month.
• Strengthened Partnerships: Enhanced security and platform integrity strengthened Vidio’s relationships with TV brand partners.

By accurately targeting fraudulent activity, the solution ensured a positive and secure experience for legitimate Vidio users

• Seamless Experience: Real-time, accurate fraud detection minimized disruptions for legitimate users, ensuring a smooth viewing experience.
• Enhanced Platform Trust: Proactive fraud prevention fostered a more secure and trustworthy environment for users.

The AI-powered solution streamlined fraud detection processes, boosting IT efficiency, improving accuracy and optimizing resource utilization.

• Automated Fraud Detection: Automated a previously manual process, freeing up internal resources.
• Scalable and Cost-Effective: Leveraged Google Cloud’s serverless architecture for scalability and cost-efficiency.
• Improved Accuracy: The AI powered model provided high accuracy (90%) in fraud detection and prevention.

The pilot implementation of Google Vertex AI & Gemini fraud detection solution, in collaboration with our partner Devoteam, has been transformative. It has significantly improved detection, with the potential to save us billions per month—protecting revenue, strengthening partnerships, and ensuring a trustworthy user experience.

Hermawan Sutanto, 
Managing Director of Vidio

To understand the platform’s full scope, delve into our expert view on supercharging your Machine Learning with the Vertex AI Platform.