Spam calls have gotten rampant over the last few years. According to a report by LocalCircles, over 66 per cent of mobile subscribers get at least three spam calls per day. According to another study by the Global Anti-Scam Alliance (GASA), in just 12 months, people have lost $1 trillion to fraud. Google, at its ongoing I/O 2024 developer conference, showcased an upcoming feature for Android smartphones, which can detect and notify a spam call in real-time. Google is leveraging an on-device Gemini nano AI model to offer better protection against spam calls for select Android smartphone users using a technology called ‘spam detection alerts’. With this feature, Google will pick up keywords from the user’s conversation with the caller and notify the user in case it senses something fishy. For instance, if a user gets a call from someone posing as a ‘bank representative’ and uses bank transaction-related words like card PINs or passwords, the system will automatically send an alert to the user indicating it could be a spam call. This also means the Gemini AI is listening to users' calls all the time. However, Google ensures that the processing takes place completely on the device and stays private. This is also said to be an opt-in feature, where one needs to manually enable or sign up to use this technology. Right now, there aren't many Android smartphones that can natively run the Gemini nano AI model, and this feature is mostly limited to a handful of high-end Android smartphones like the Google Pixel 8 Pro and the Galaxy S24 series of smartphones. Even for eligible devices, it is coming later this year. Google is likely to introduce this feature via the Google Dialler. In the coming days, more and more devices should be able to natively run the Gemini nano AI model, which will get access to these latest capabilities. Google Dialler already has built-in spam protection, which is enabled by default, and it automatically filters out spam calls and can show details of an unknown number such as the name of the company and services by matching it with an existing directory.
