Albert Saniger, former CEO and co-founder of NATE, an AI shopping app that promised users automated experiences, has been charged by the Department of Justice (DOJ) on two counts of fraud. The fintech founder, who gigged with Amazon early in his career, co-founded Nate in 2018 to provide users with AI-assisted shopping. Turns out, it wasn’t AI at all, but rather hundreds of human staff at a call center back in the Philippines.
Per Nate, the users could avail the app to order from any e-commerce site with just one click. However, investigations revealed that all the operations behind the ‘single click’ were carried out via hundreds of human contractors. Saniger raised over $50 million for the app initially and later $38 million in Series A funding in 2021. While the firm did employ data engineers and integrated some AI technology, the app itself had zero AI functionality. Meanwhile, these data engineers were directed to create bots to automate transactions on the app.
According to the DOJ, Nate was forced to sell its assets in 2023 after burning all investments that left investors with near total loss.
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The DOJ has charged Albert Saniger (35), originally from Barcelona in Spain, with one count of securities fraud and one count of wire fraud. For each of these charges he could face a maximum of up to 20 years in jail.
The founder of a so-called AI shopping app is in hot water after it turned out the “intelligence” was really hundreds of humans completing the tasks behind the scenes. 🤖👀 #TechFraud #AlbertSaniger #nateApp #ShoppingApp https://t.co/O7Ajso49Jd
— TAXI (@designtaxi) April 11, 2025
Tech CEO charged in artificial intelligence investment fraud schemehttps://t.co/UyoYN6lrtN
— US Attorney SDNY (@SDNYnews) April 9, 2025
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Cover: Patrick Gawande / Mashable India
