Google Messages adds AI scam protection in Gemini — SkimNews
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- Google Messages is adding an opt-in 'enhanced protection' setting in the coming weeks that uses cloud-based Gemini AI models to evaluate potential scammers' intentions in conversations with unrecognized senders, addressing "slow-burn conversations" that evade existing detection.
- Cloud-based Gemini analysis encrypts user data and processes it in a 'secure dedicated space' that Google says neither it nor anyone else can access, augmenting existing on-device detection.
- On-device Gemini Nano AI inspects real-time web signals in unfamiliar URLs sent to users to flag malicious links before they're opened.
- Android is adding additional safeguards including blocking apps from enabling call forwarding without user consent, and automatically concealing sensitive information during screen-sharing in Chrome and Android WebView.
- Scam detection for chat notifications, a feature Google introduced on Pixel phones last year, is expanding to devices from Honor, Motorola, Oppo, OnePlus, Realme, Tecno, Vivo, Xiaomi, and others.
- Google says it plans to bring the expanded scam detection to "hundreds of millions of additional users later this year."
Why it matters: The expansion shifts scam detection from Pixel-only on-device filtering to Gemini-powered cloud and on-device analysis reaching hundreds of millions of additional Android users across at least nine device brands. Because scammers increasingly evade simple on-device detection through slow-burn conversational tactics, layering cloud-based intent evaluation behind an opt-in toggle raises the cost of bulk phishing on the platform — but only for users who turn it on.
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