HYDERABAD: Bharti Airtel, which recently rolled out its new AI-powered spam detection system, on Monday said it has successfully identified and blocked 122 million potential
spam calls
and 2.3 million spam SMS messages in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh alone in the 10 days since it was rolled out.
The telco, which launched the spam detection system in Sept end as a free service for all customers, has around 33.8 million customers across the two Telugu states.
Sources said pan-India, at least a billion calls have been blocked by the spam detection system so far.
Shivan Bhargava, CEO for AP, Telangana and Kerala, Bharti Airtel, said the spam detection system has been developed in-house by a team of data scientists based out of Delhi NCR with an eye on checking the surge in spam and scam calls and SMSes.
“The AI-powered solution uses a proprietary algorithm to identify and classify calls and SMSes as `suspected spam’. The network, powered by a state-of-the-art AI algorithm analyses various parameters such as the caller or sender’s usage patterns, call and SMS frequency and call duration amongst several other parametres, on a real-time basis. By cross-referencing this information against known spam patterns, the system flags suspected spam calls and SMSes accurately,” he explained.
The solution offers a dual-layered protection thanks to two filters – one at the network layer and the second at the IT systems layer.
“Every call and SMS passes through this dual-layered AI shield. In two milliseconds the solution processes 1.5 billion messages and 2.5 billion calls. This is equivalent to processing 1 trillion records on a real time basis using the power of AI,” he explained.
The system also alerts customers to malicious links received via SMS for which Airtel has built a centralised database of blacklisted URLs.
“Every SMS is scanned in real time by the AI algorithm to caution users from accidentally clicking on suspicious links. The solution can also detect anomalies such as frequent IMEI changes – a typical indicator of fraudulent behaviour,” Airtel said.
