Google will soon bring a new artificial intelligence-enabled feature to the Android platform that will alert users to potential scam calls. The company made the announcement at the Google I/O 2024 developer conference in May.
Citing an annual study by the Global Anti-Scam Alliance (GASA), Google points out that people lost more than a trillion dollars to fraud in the 12 months from October 2022 to 2023.
Android scam alerts are powered by Gemini Nano, Google’s in-device AI model that currently runs on the Pixel 8 Pro and Galaxy S24 smartphone series. The AI essentially listens to your phone calls in real-time and gives on-screen alerts if it detects anything suspicious.
For example, you’ll hear a noise during a call and get a warning on the screen if a so-called bank representative asks you to quickly transfer money, pay with a gift card, or reveal your personal information, such as card PINs or passwords, which are rare bank requests.
Google says real-time processing of calls only happens on your device. This is not very different from how live captions currently work during calls. This means that only your device has access to your chat data, not Google or third parties.
Google will share more details about the new feature later this year.
Source: Android Authority