Phishing attacks are getting smarter. So are the tools we can throw at them. A recent breakdown from MakeUseOf lays out a practical case for using ChatGPT as a phishing detection tool — not as a replacement for dedicated security software, but as a surprisingly capable first filter that most professionals already have access to.
The concept is straightforward. Copy a suspicious email, message, or URL into ChatGPT and ask it to analyze the content for signs of phishing. The AI can identify red flags like urgency-driven language, spoofed sender addresses, suspicious links, requests for personal information, and grammatical patterns commonly associated with social engineering attacks. It’s not magic. It’s pattern recognition at scale, trained on massive datasets that include countless examples of both legitimate and malicious communications.
And it works better than you’d expect.
MakeUseOf tested ChatGPT against several phishing examples and found it consistently flagged the right warning signs — fake urgency, mismatched URLs, impersonation of known brands, and requests to click links or provide credentials. The AI didn’t just say “this looks suspicious.” It explained why, breaking down each element of the message that triggered concern. That explanatory layer matters. It turns a binary yes/no into an educational moment, which is exactly what security-conscious organizations need when training employees to recognize threats on their own.
The timing here is relevant. Phishing remains the number one attack vector for data breaches globally. According to Verizon’s 2024 Data Breach Investigations Report, phishing and pretexting via email accounted for a significant share of social engineering incidents. Meanwhile, AI-generated phishing emails are making traditional detection harder. Attackers are using the same large language models to craft more convincing lures — fewer typos, better formatting, more personalized hooks. The old advice of “look for bad grammar” doesn’t cut it anymore.
So using AI to fight AI-generated threats has a certain logic to it.
There are real limitations, though. ChatGPT can’t verify whether a URL is actually hosting malware. It can’t check if a sender’s domain has been recently registered or flagged on threat intelligence feeds. It doesn’t have real-time access to blocklists or reputation databases the way tools like Google Safe Browsing or VirusTotal do. What it can do is assess the linguistic and structural patterns of a message and tell you, with reasonable confidence, whether something smells off.
Think of it as a triage tool. Not the final word.
For IT professionals and security teams, the practical application is interesting on a few levels. First, it’s an accessible way to empower non-technical employees. Someone in accounting who gets a weird email from “the CEO” asking for a wire transfer doesn’t need to understand DKIM headers or SPF records. They can paste the email into ChatGPT and get a plain-English risk assessment in seconds. That lowers the barrier to skepticism, which is half the battle in phishing defense.
Second, ChatGPT can serve as a training aid. Security awareness programs often struggle with engagement. But showing employees how an AI dissects a phishing attempt — pointing out the psychological manipulation tactics, the fake sense of urgency, the slightly-off branding — can be more effective than another PowerPoint deck about password hygiene. People remember interactive demonstrations.
But here’s where I’d pump the brakes slightly. Pasting sensitive corporate emails into ChatGPT raises its own security questions. OpenAI’s data handling policies have evolved, and the company now offers options to disable chat history and has introduced enterprise-grade privacy controls for business users. Still, organizations should have clear policies about what information employees can share with external AI tools. The irony of creating a data exposure risk while trying to prevent a phishing breach would be painful.
There’s also the false confidence problem. If ChatGPT says an email looks safe, some users might take that as a guarantee. It isn’t one. The AI can miss sophisticated spear-phishing attacks that are carefully tailored to a specific target with accurate context and legitimate-looking infrastructure. No single tool catches everything. Layered security still wins.
The broader trend is clear, though. AI assistants are becoming general-purpose analytical tools that extend well beyond content generation. Phishing detection is just one example. Professionals are already using ChatGPT to analyze contracts, audit code, and review financial documents for anomalies. Adding “email security gut check” to that list makes sense.
For organizations that don’t have dedicated phishing simulation platforms or AI-powered email security gateways — and plenty of small and mid-sized businesses don’t — ChatGPT offers a zero-cost starting point. It won’t replace Proofpoint or Abnormal Security. But it’s already sitting on most employees’ desktops. Might as well put it to work.