Best Vishing Simulation Software in 2026: A Buyer's Guide

Most security software comparison guides rank platforms by the size of their phishing email template library. That made sense five years ago. It does not make sense today.

Voice phishing (vishing) attacks surged 442% between the first and second halves of 2024. AI tools can now clone a person's voice from a short audio recording. The Cisco CRM breach and the ShinyHunters campaign that hit 760 organizations — including Google and Qantas — both started with a phone call to an IT help desk, not a phishing email.

If you are evaluating security awareness training platforms in 2026, the right question is not "how many email templates does it have?" The right question is: which platform can simulate a realistic voice attack, and actually train your employees to handle one?

This guide answers that question. It compares the top platforms based on their voice phishing, deepfake, and real-time AI call capabilities. Email features are not the focus here.

What Is Vishing Simulation Software?

Before comparing platforms, it helps to define exactly what you are buying. The terms in this category get used loosely, and the differences matter.

Vishing (Voice Phishing): A social engineering attack conducted over a phone call. The attacker tries to manipulate the target into handing over credentials, approving a transfer, or granting access to a system.

Vishing Simulation: A controlled, AI-generated phone call that replicates real attacker tactics to test your employees, without any real risk to the organization.

Voice Cloning: Using an audio recording to build an AI model that reproduces a specific person's voice, accent, and speech patterns. Commercial platforms typically require one to two minutes of audio; research prototypes have demonstrated shorter thresholds, though results vary widely.

Deepfake Audio/Video: AI-generated speech or video designed to be indistinguishable from a real person. Deepfake video extends the threat from phone calls to video meetings.

Hybrid Attack Simulation: A coordinated campaign that pairs a phishing email with a follow-up voice call in a single workflow, replicating how real attackers operate across multiple channels.

Live Adaptive AI Call: A real-time AI-powered phone call that responds dynamically to whatever the target says. This is fundamentally different from a pre-recorded script, which plays the same audio regardless of how the employee responds.

Phish-Prone Percentage (PPP): The percentage of employees who fail a simulated attack. It is the standard metric for measuring whether a security awareness program is working.

Why This Category Matters in 2026

Most security awareness training platforms were built for a world where phishing happened in inboxes. Email simulations test whether an employee clicks a suspicious link or enters credentials on a fake login page. That is a useful test. It is just not the only test that matters anymore.

Voice attacks work differently. When an employee receives a suspicious email, they have time to pause, reread it, check the sender address, and think. When they are on a phone call with someone claiming to be the CFO who needs a wire transfer processed before the end of business today, the clock is ticking from the moment they pick up. There is no link to hover over. There is no sender address to inspect. The pressure is immediate, and the social dynamics are harder to navigate.

Eighty percent of SAT programs still focus exclusively on email phishing, even as voice attacks have become a preferred enterprise breach vector. And the platforms have not all kept pace. Some vendors offer vishing as a genuine simulation capability. Others offer a voicemail drop that tracks whether employees call back. Those are not the same thing, and buying the wrong one will give your organization a false sense of readiness.

How This Guide Evaluates Platforms

Six criteria drive this comparison. Each one reflects something a buyer should actually verify before signing a contract.

• Call realism: Does the platform run a live adaptive AI conversation, or play a pre-recorded script?

• Voice technology: Can admins clone a specific executive's voice, or only select generic AI voices?

• Attack type coverage: Does it support voice-only calls, hybrid voice-plus-email campaigns, and deepfake video?

• Simulation design depth: Can admins control which psychological tactics the AI uses, or are they limited to choosing a template?

• Vishing-specific reporting: Does the platform track answer rate, call duration, and failure trends, or just a pass/fail count?

• Ethical design and admin controls: Does the platform prevent over-testing the same employee? Are audit logs available at all plan tiers?

Top Vishing Simulation Platforms in 2026

Brightside AI, Hoxhunt, Jericho Security, Adaptive Security, and KnowBe4 are the leading options, but they differ significantly in call realism, deepfake support, and workflow depth. Brightside AI stands out for combining live adaptive AI calls, hybrid voice-plus-email campaigns, AI-assisted call design, and a dedicated vishing metrics dashboard. KnowBe4's vishing simulation capability begins at its Gold tier, and its deepfake feature — launched in December 2025 — is an awareness training tool rather than a simulation attack.

Based on publicly documented vendor capabilities as of Q1 2026. Verify live-call behavior directly through vendor demos before purchasing.

† Hoxhunt's deepfake feature is a custom-delivered email-plus-mock-video-call experience, not a documented autonomous AI phone call agent.
‡ Adaptive Security's voice simulation format is not detailed in public documentation — contact the vendor to confirm live-conversation capability.
§ KnowBe4 launched deepfake awareness training content in December 2025, available to AIDA subscribers and Diamond-tier customers. This is educational content, not a simulation attack against employees.

Not all "vishing support" is equal. The table above shows whether a capability exists. The sections below explain what each entry actually means for your employees and your program.

What Buyers Should Look for in Vishing Simulation Software

1. Call Realism: Live Adaptive AI vs. Pre-Recorded Scripts

This is the most important criterion on the list, and the one most likely to get glossed over in a vendor demo.

A pre-recorded script works like a voicemail. The platform calls the employee, plays an audio recording, and logs whether they stay on the line, call back a fake number, or follow other instructions. The employee never actually speaks to an AI. They listen to a recording.

A live adaptive AI conversation is different. The AI calls the employee and when the employee speaks, the AI responds. If the employee asks questions, the AI answers them. If the employee says "I need to verify this with my manager," the AI pushes back. If they hesitate, the AI uses urgency to re-engage. The conversation is dynamic and unscripted, much closer to what a real attacker would do.

Platforms with documented live adaptive call capability include Brightside AI and Jericho Security. Hoxhunt's deepfake feature is a custom-delivered email-plus-mock-video-call simulation rather than an autonomous phone call agent. Adaptive Security's voice simulation format is not publicly detailed. Contact the vendor to confirm. KnowBe4 has no live call capability.

If your goal is to test whether your employees can handle real social engineering pressure in real time, live conversation quality is the single most important feature to verify before you buy.

2. Deepfake and Executive Impersonation Readiness

Generic AI voices are useful. Custom voice clones are something else entirely.

The psychological impact of hearing a familiar voice on a phone call is qualitatively different from hearing an unfamiliar AI voice. When a finance manager hears what sounds exactly like the CFO demanding urgent action, the authority pressure it creates is not replicable with a generic persona. That is precisely the scenario that led a finance employee at Arup to transfer $25 million in 2024, and a finance director at a multinational firm to authorize $499,000 in Singapore in March 2025.

Platforms with deepfake support include Brightside AI, Adaptive Security, Hoxhunt, and KnowBe4, though each implements it differently. Brightside AI allows admins to upload a 1–2 minute recording of an actual executive and use that cloned voice inside a live adaptive AI phone call. Hoxhunt delivers deepfake simulation as a custom service combining a phishing email with a mock video call page. KnowBe4's December 2025 deepfake feature generates awareness training content from an uploaded executive clip. It educates employees about deepfakes but does not simulate an attack against them. Jericho Security offers deepfake as a managed service, requiring professional services engagement.

For organizations that want to run a self-serve deepfake attack simulation against their own employees, Brightside AI is the only platform reviewed here that enables that end-to-end today.

3. Simulation Design Depth: Tactic Control vs. Template Selection

Here is a question worth asking during any vendor demo: can your admins choose which psychological tactics the AI uses, or do they just pick from a list of pre-built scenarios?

Real attackers do not pick from templates. They combine specific tactics based on the target: authority when impersonating a senior executive, urgency when the target hesitates, social proof when claiming others have already approved something, reciprocity when they want the target to feel obligated.

Brightside AI is the only platform reviewed here that gives admins explicit control over this layer. Its tactics builder lets admins combine pretexting, curiosity hooks, fear and threat, commitment escalation, authority impersonation, social proof, and reciprocity in a single scenario. The platform also provides an AI-recommended strategy, a pre-configured combination of tactics organized into three layers (Foundation, Approach, Pressure) with a plain-language "Why this works" explanation of the psychological reasoning. Admins can apply the recommendation directly or customize it manually.

For teams that want to test specific manipulation patterns rather than generic scenarios, this level of control is the difference between a realistic test and a template selection exercise.

4. Multi-Channel Attack Simulation: Unified Hybrid Workflows

How do real vishing campaigns actually start? Often with an email.

The attacker sends a phishing email first. It establishes context: a fake invoice, a security alert, a policy update. Then they follow up with a phone call. "Hi, this is [name] from IT. Did you receive the email we sent about your account? I'm calling to help you through the next steps." The employee has already seen the email. The call feels like a logical follow-up. The combined effect is far more convincing than either channel alone.

This is called a hybrid attack, and it is how a large share of real enterprise breaches unfold.

Brightside AI coordinates a tracked phishing email and a live AI voice call in a single unified campaign workflow. The attack type — Voice Attack or Hybrid Attack — is selected in the first step of template creation. When Hybrid is chosen, the AI generates a phishing email to accompany the call, pre-populates suggested variables, and lets the admin edit or approve it before launch. Both channels are tracked within one campaign.

Hoxhunt's multi-channel capability pairs a phishing email with a mock video call landing page. That tests a different behavior — whether an employee engages with a suspicious video call prompt — but it is not a coordinated voice-plus-email phone call workflow. The other vendors either treat voice and email as separate modules or do not support coordinated multi-channel attacks at all.

5. Reporting That Goes Beyond Pass/Fail

Imagine presenting your vishing simulation results to your CISO or board. What do you actually need to show them?

A binary pass/fail count tells you how many employees failed. It does not tell you whether answer rates are improving. It does not show you average call duration, which indicates how long employees stayed engaged with an attacker before recognizing the attempt. Nor does it reveal trends over time, or flag which teams are most at risk.

Brightside AI is the only platform reviewed here with a dedicated vishing metrics dashboard. It tracks failed rate, answer rate, median call duration, total simulations, trend views over 7, 30, and 90 days, a recent activity feed, scheduled upcoming calls, and CSV export for reporting to leadership. Every other vendor applies generic campaign reporting to vishing results, sufficient for email phishing click rates but not designed for voice simulation's distinct engagement patterns.

6. Ethical Design and Admin Controls

A simulation that feels like a trap destroys trust faster than it builds resilience. Employees who feel targeted or embarrassed disengage from security programs, and disengaged employees are easier to attack.

Two specific controls separate well-designed platforms from poorly designed ones.

The first is a simulation cooling period. On Brightside AI, once a sender domain is used against an employee, that same domain cannot be reused against that same employee for at least three months, enforced automatically across all workspaces. This prevents employees from habituating to a recurring test rather than developing genuine resilience.

The second is a full admin audit log. Every action taken in the admin portal should be logged with a timestamp, identity, and IP address. Brightside AI documents this at the platform level, covering all admin edits, deletions, and bulk operations. KnowBe4 restricts its full audit logging to higher plan tiers, so buyers should confirm which tier includes audit log access before signing.

AI-Native Platforms vs. Legacy Security Awareness Vendors

The market has split into two distinct categories.

Where AI-Native Platforms Pull Ahead

Brightside AI, Hoxhunt, Adaptive Security, and Jericho Security all built their platforms around AI-driven simulation from the start. Voice realism, conversational AI, and modern attack flows are their core product, not features added later to satisfy a checkbox.

Buyers get tactic-level control, more realistic simulation experiences, and analytics designed specifically for voice-based training outcomes. That combination is difficult to replicate by layering voice features onto an email-first architecture.

Where Legacy Platforms Still Compete

KnowBe4, Proofpoint, and Infosec IQ built their platforms around email phishing compliance training, and they are still very good at it. If your organization has thousands of employees, an established training culture, and a compliance-driven program, the breadth of email template libraries and integrations that legacy vendors offer is genuinely hard to match.

The trade-off is direct: KnowBe4's vishing simulation begins at its Gold tier; Proofpoint's simulation portfolio covers email, SMS, and USB but does not include a documented live voice call capability; Infosec IQ offers a vishing template library rather than live adaptive calls. The choice comes down to compliance breadth versus attack realism.

What the Gap Looks Like in Practice

A pre-recorded script versus a live AI that argues back: an employee who stalls or asks questions on a scripted call experiences no resistance. The script plays regardless. A live adaptive AI recalibrates and continues the social engineering attempt in real time. One tests whether an employee can recognize a trigger. The other tests whether they can maintain skepticism during a conversation specifically designed to break it down.

A generic AI voice versus a cloned executive voice: the authority pressure of hearing what sounds exactly like the CFO is not something a generic persona can replicate. Authority is the primary mechanism that makes vishing work. A simulation that does not trigger it is not testing the real vulnerability.

Separate email and voice modules versus a unified hybrid workflow: attackers do not use one channel at a time. Training that simulates each channel in isolation does not prepare employees for the sequential attack chain they will actually face.

Platform-by-Platform Breakdown

Brightside AI

Best for: Organizations that want the most complete vishing simulation feature set — live adaptive AI, custom voice cloning, and hybrid attack capability — in one platform.

Brightside AI is an award-winning Swiss cybersecurity awareness training platform built around a five-step simulation campaign framework. For vishing, admins work through: Attack Goal, Context, Tactics, Voice, and Review.

In Step 1, admins select either a Voice Attack or Hybrid Attack, then describe the attack objective using free text or one of the Quick Start presets (password reset link extraction, credit card verification, SSN harvesting, and others). In Step 2, admins define the caller persona and target, with an auto-fill feature that generates a realistic persona from the attack goal, and can customize the AI's opening message. In Step 3, the Recommended Strategy system suggests a layered combination of tactics with a "Why this works" psychological explanation; admins can apply this directly or build their own combination. In Step 4, admins choose from 8 preset voices across English, French, German, and Italian, or use a custom voice clone created from a 1–2 minute executive recording. In Step 5, admins see a full configuration summary and can test the simulation live in a browser before saving or launching.

No other platform reviewed here offers all of the following in a single product: live adaptive AI conversations, custom executive voice cloning, a unified hybrid voice-plus-email workflow, an AI-recommended attack strategy with psychological reasoning, and a dedicated vishing metrics dashboard with CSV export. The admin portal includes a full audit log covering all admin actions with timestamp, identity, and IP address.

One thing to verify: As a newer platform, Brightside has a smaller email template library than KnowBe4. Organizations with very large-scale email phishing compliance requirements should confirm template coverage before switching from a legacy platform.

Hoxhunt

Hoxhunt's Deepfake Attack Simulation, launched in summer 2025, delivers a phishing email that directs the target to a mock video call page featuring an AI-generated deepfake of a manager or executive, including custom voice and video. It is a custom-delivered service rather than a self-serve campaign feature. The platform's core strength is its adaptive difficulty system, which adjusts simulation difficulty per employee based on individual performance history, and its gamification layer. Hoxhunt has documented a 9x improvement in employee threat reporting rates after one year of use.

Best for: Teams with mature adaptive training programs that want to extend into deepfake simulation without changing platforms, and where a managed delivery model is acceptable.

Watch out for: Hoxhunt's deepfake simulation is a managed video-call experience, not a documented autonomous AI phone call agent. There is no self-serve hybrid voice-plus-email workflow and no dedicated vishing metrics dashboard.

Adaptive Security

Adaptive Security, founded in 2024, has grown to 500+ enterprise customers and raised $81 million in Series B funding from NVIDIA, Bain Capital Ventures, and the OpenAI Startup Fund. The platform delivers AI-generated voice simulations using custom executive personas and supports deepfake video scenarios. It pairs simulation with automated risk monitoring and can restrict user access controls when employees fail simulations.

Best for: Buyers who want an AI-native vendor with strong deepfake support, automated risk scoring, and a large enterprise reference base.

Before you sign: The exact format of Adaptive Security's voice simulation — whether it runs as a live adaptive AI conversation or a structured AI-generated call — is not publicly detailed. Verify the live-conversation depth directly through a demo before comparing it against platforms where this is documented.

Jericho Security

Jericho Security's platform generates dynamic attack pretexts from real threat intelligence and supports live adaptive conversations across multiple channels. It has received recognition at major security conferences for its multi-channel AI simulation approach.

Best for: Enterprise teams that want adversarial AI scenario generation across email, SMS, and voice, and are comfortable with a managed service model for deepfake scenarios.

Key constraint: Deepfake video simulation requires professional services engagement. It is not a self-serve campaign feature. Admin audit logging is restricted to the Enterprise tier. Confirm pricing and tier details with the vendor directly before comparing against self-serve platforms.

KnowBe4

KnowBe4 is the largest security awareness training vendor on the market by template library and installed base. Its compliance coverage and depth of integrations make it a strong anchor for organizations where email phishing remains the primary risk focus. Vishing simulation (outbound test calls from a template library) is available from the Gold tier upward.

In December 2025, KnowBe4 launched a Deepfake Training feature that allows admins to upload a short video or audio clip of a company executive and generate custom deepfake awareness content. It is available to AIDA subscribers and Diamond-tier customers. This is an awareness training tool — it shows employees what a deepfake looks and sounds like — not a simulation attack launched against them.

Best for: Large organizations with compliance-driven, email-heavy awareness programs already running on the KnowBe4 platform, where voice simulation realism is not a core requirement.

Buyers evaluating KnowBe4 for voice: Understand the distinction between its vishing test capability (Gold tier and above, template-based outbound calls) and live adaptive AI conversation depth. These are not the same thing.

Honorable mentions: Arsen and Keepnet Labs appear in independent platform comparisons as vendors with vishing simulation capability and dedicated voice metrics. Both are actively developing their platforms. Verify current feature sets directly with each vendor.

Which Vishing Simulation Platform Is Right for Your Team?

Choose Brightside AI if you need live adaptive AI conversations, executive voice cloning, a unified hybrid workflow, and a dedicated metrics dashboard to report results to leadership, all in one platform.

Choose Hoxhunt if you have a mature adaptive training program and want to extend it into deepfake video simulation through a managed service without switching platforms.

Choose Adaptive Security if you want an AI-native vendor with strong deepfake support and automated risk scoring, and you are comfortable verifying voice simulation depth directly through a demo.

Choose Jericho Security if you need enterprise-grade adversarial AI scenario generation and a managed service model works for your team.

Choose KnowBe4 if your program is primarily compliance and email-focused, you are already invested in the platform, and voice simulation realism is not yet a core program requirement.

The threat has moved to voice. The platforms that take that seriously are worth evaluating on those terms.