Airtel to crack down spam calls with India’s first AI-powered network tool

NEW DELHI: In a pioneering move to curb the country’s spam menace, Bharti Airtel on Wednesday launched India’s first network-based, AI-powered spam detection solution.

The free-of-cost solution -- a first by a telecom service provider in the country -- will alert customers in real time to all suspected spam calls and SMSes.

It will get auto-activated for all Airtel customers without them having to raise a service request or download an app.

“Spam has become a menace for customers. Today marks a milestone as we launch the country’s first AI-powered spam-free network that will shield our customers from the continuous onslaught of intrusive and unwanted communications,” said Gopal Vittal, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Bharti Airtel.

Vittal said that the company spent the last 12 months solving the spam and built the tool with “dual-layer protection” -- 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 2 milliseconds our solution processes 1.5 billion messages and 2.5 billion calls every day. This is equivalent to processing 1 trillion records on a real-time basis using the power of AI,” Vittal said.

So far the tool successfully identified “100 million potential spam calls and 3 million spam SMSes originating every day”, Vittal noted.

Developed in-house by Airtel’s data scientists, the AI-powered solution uses a proprietary algorithm to identify and classify calls and SMSes as "Suspected SPAM".

It analyses the caller or sender's usage patterns, call/SMS frequency, and call duration amongst several others, on a real-time basis.

By cross-referencing this information against known spam patterns, the system flags suspected spam calls and SMSes accurately.

In addition, the tool also alerts customers to malicious links received via SMS. For this, Airtel has built a centralised database of blacklisted URLs and every SMS is scanned in real-time by a state-of-the-art AI algorithm to caution users from accidentally clicking on suspicious links.

The tool can also detect anomalies such as frequent IMEI changes -- a typical indicator of fraudulent behaviour, Airtel said.