Bharti Airtel Unveils AI-Powered Spam Detection System to Combat Unwanted Calls and Messages
Last Updated on September 25, 2024 by Sagar Sharma
Bharti Airtel, India’s second-largest telecom operator, announced on Wednesday the rollout of a cutting-edge AI-powered spam detection solution aimed at tackling the escalating issue of spam calls and messages across the country.
Dubbed India’s first network-based AI spam detection system, this innovative feature will alert Airtel customers in real-time about suspected spam communications. The service will be automatically activated for all users at no additional cost, benefitting Airtel’s approximately 387 million wireless subscribers in India.
Spam calls have long been a major nuisance for Indian consumers. A recent survey conducted by LocalCircles revealed that an alarming 95% of users report receiving unwanted calls daily, with most experiencing at least three such interruptions. The government’s “Do Not Disturb” (DND) registry has largely fallen short, as 90% of registered users still encounter spam, according to the survey findings.
Gopal Vittal, Managing Director and CEO of Bharti Airtel, emphasized the company’s commitment to customer satisfaction, noting that it took 12 months to develop this new spam detection system. “Spam has become a menace for customers,” he stated.
Airtel’s new system employs a robust dual-layer protection mechanism, filtering communications at both the network and IT systems levels. The company’s data scientists have crafted a proprietary algorithm that analyzes various factors in real-time, including caller usage patterns, call frequency, and duration.
This AI solution is set to handle an impressive volume of communications, processing around 1.5 billion messages and 2.5 billion calls daily. It has the capability to identify up to 100 million potential spam calls and 3 million spam SMS messages each day.
In addition to call filtering, the AI system scans SMS content for malicious links, cross-referencing these against a centralized database of blacklisted URLs. This added layer of security is designed to protect users from inadvertently clicking on suspicious links, which are common vectors for fraud and phishing attempts.
