Airtel’s Al tool detects 115Million spam calls and 3.6Million messages on Day1

According to persons familiar with the matter, Bharti Airtel discovered over 115 million spam calls and 3.6 million spam texts on its network the same day it debuted an AI-powered spam detection tool. The service was unveiled on Thursday morning and is presently available to all 387 million Airtel smartphone users. The volume of spam calls and messages is expected to increase as more feature phone users are added to the tool.This new service competes with Sweden’s Truecaller app in the detection and prevention of spam by instantly alerting users to potentially spammy calls and messages. It doesn’t require users to download an app and activates instantly for all Airtel customers.

Gopal Vittal, the CEO of Bharti Airtel, made it apparent that the technology helps customers make wise judgments by quickly identifying spammers and scammers by examining user behavior patterns. He emphasized that the solution is broadly accessible because it functions on all operating systems. Vittal emphasized further how Airtel and other telecom service providers collaborate to protect legitimate business services while continuously monitoring and stopping abuse. However, Airtel is still looking for feedback from other telecom companies.

The introduction of this tool is consistent with TRAI’s ongoing efforts to stop spam emails and calls. TRAI reaffirmed on Thursday the telecom companies’ October 1 deadline for blocking any traffic, including unwhitelisted websites, APK downloads, and over-the-top (OTT) links. Telecoms have been asked by TRAI to upload their whitelists as quickly as possible, since more than 3,000 registered senders have already uploaded them and they contain more than 70,000 URLs. Senders who fail to comply by the deadline will not be able to send messages that contain such links. Many mobile connections have been blocked by telecom companies under government orders, but spam is increasingly migrating to over-the-top (OTT) networks like WhatsApp.