Information dissemination and preservation are crucial for societal progress, especially in the technological age. While technology fosters knowledge sharing, it also risks spreading misinformation. Audio deepfakes—convincingly fabricated audio created using artificial intelligence (AI)—exacerbate this issue. We present Sonic Sleuth, a novel AI model designed specifically for detecting audio deepfakes. Our approach utilizes advanced deep learning (DL) techniques, including a custom CNN model, to enhance detection accuracy in audio misinformation, with practical applications in journalism and social media. Through meticulous data preprocessing and rigorous experimentation, we achieved a remarkable 98.27% accuracy and a 0.016 equal error rate (EER) on a substantial dataset of real and synthetic audio. Additionally, Sonic Sleuth demonstrated 84.92% accuracy and a 0.085 EER on an external dataset. The novelty of this research lies in its integration of datasets that closely simulate real-world conditions, including noise and linguistic diversity, enabling the model to generalize across a wide array of audio inputs. These results underscore Sonic Sleuth’s potential as a powerful tool for combating misinformation and enhancing integrity in digital communications.