Airtel CEO and MD Gopal Vittal, press briefing about AI spam detector on 25 September in Delhi (Image: Airtel)
Bharti Airtel, the leading telecommunication company in India, launched an artificial intelligence-powered spam detection tool on Wednesday to protect its users from unwanted calls and messages. It was announced at a press meet in Delhi that the new solution which was developed in-house uses a proprietary algorithm to identify and flag suspected spam calls and messages in real-time. This innovative tool will be available free of cost to all Airtel users and will be auto-activated.
To fight the menace of SPAM calls received by our customers every day, our AI tool & network intelligence will enable us to flag verified spammers as ‘Suspected SPAM’ on calls and SMS on our network. A feat that makes us the first ever SPAM fighting network in India.… pic.twitter.com/T5qRhbWDYw
— Bharti Airtel (@airtelnews) September 26, 2024
According to Airtel‘s managing director and CEO, Gopal Vittal, Airtel is becoming India’s first ever SPAM fighting network and the company has spent the last 12 months working on this comprehensive solution to combat the growing menace of spam calls. The AI-powered tool analyses various parameters such as caller usage patterns, call frequency, and call duration to classify calls and messages as “Suspected SPAM”. This data is then cross-referenced with known spam patterns that may enable the telco to flag suspicious calls and SMSes.
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This solution also boasts dual filters operating at two levels network layer and IT systems layer. It can process 150 crore messages and 250 crore calls in just two milliseconds. This translates to processing one trillion records in real-time using AI that successfully identifies 100 million potential spam calls and three million spam SMSes daily. Airtel’s AI-powered tool also alerts customers to malicious links received via SMS by leveraging a centralised database of blacklisted URLs. Additionally, it detects anomalies such as frequent IMEI changes to curb spam calls.
This launch comes as Indian authorities intensify efforts to combat spam calls as the telcos blacklisted 50 entities and disconnected 2.85 lakh mobile numbers for spamming users recently, following directions from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI). It was said that TRAI is also pushing for strong measures against unsolicited communications via apps like WhatsApp and Telegram in full-fledged forms.
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