- Google is using AI to protect against scams in Chrome, Search and Android
- The AI can analyze and distill data to detect entirely new scams
- Google claims it’s already seeing positive results from the change
If there’s one thing you learn while browsing the internet, it’s that scams are everywhere. Even the most eagle-eyed experts can fall victim, with untold sums of money being lost to these nefarious schemes every year.
That doesn’t mean the situation is hopeless, though, and Google is now taking the fight to scammers with the help of artificial intelligence (AI). According to a recent blog post from the company, there are three areas where Google is using AI against scams: Chrome, Google Search, and Android.
In Chrome, Google is deploying its Gemini Nano on-device large language model (LLM) to provide an Enhanced Protection mode to users. Google says this “keeps users twice as safe from phishing and other scams versus our Standard Protection mode.”
The AI does this by distilling its knowledge of scams in order to analyze suspicious websites and alert users to threats, even if the dangers are new and haven’t been seen before.
As for Search, Google says AI “helps us detect and block hundreds of millions of scammy results every day,” with 20 times as many fraudulent pages being caught than before Google enlisted the help of AI.
Google claims this approach has reduced airline-related scams appearing in Search by up to 80%, for example.
AI on Android
While many of these improvements are cross-platform changes that will be seen on different devices, there are also some Android-exclusive tweaks that are putting AI to good use against scams.
One example is website notifications on Android phones. If you’ve allowed a scam website to send you notifications (without realizing it is a scam), you could be barraged by fraudulent alerts that try to steal your data. In cases like that, Google has just launched AI-powered warnings specifically for Chrome on Android.
When a suspicious notification is detected, Chrome on Android will warn you that the alert might be a scam. You can then turn off notifications from the website in question, or view the alert itself, at which point you will again be able to unsubscribe or always allow the alerts if you don’t think they are nefarious.
There are also improvements coming to Google Messages and Phone by Google. These detect ongoing scams that start out innocently, but quickly evolve into dangerous situations, which might be hard for traditional scam-protection methods to spot.
Whatever device you use, it looks like you could benefit from Google’s recent rollout of AI to fight against scams. With bad actors constantly improving their tactics, AI’s ability to quickly analyze huge reams of data could spare you from the fraudsters.
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alexblake.techradar@gmail.com (Alex Blake)
