Are you sold yet on the potential of AI? Smartphone features powered by AI feel like the only thing manufacturers are talking about anymore, but how many of those are actually useful tools you’re interested in, and how many seem more like fancy tech demos? Even if you’re still waiting for that killer app, we’ve got reason to be optimistic, and have heard about a few compelling projects in the works, like Google using Gemini Nano to keep you safe from scammers on voice calls. As we wait to get full details from Google on how that will arrive, we’re already seeing some early evidence of it in the Phone app.
Manual Reporting and Distinction Between Scams and Spam
An APK teardown helps predict features that may arrive on a service in the future based on work-in-progress code. However, it is possible that such predicted features may not make it to a public release. Opening up the new Google Phone 138 beta release, we spot a number of text strings that sound related to this incoming functionality:
- Report call as scam: Unknown callers asking for your personal, financial, or device info
- Report call as spam: Nuisance calls, irrelevant or unsolicited promotions, offers, etc.
- Information reported will only be used by Google to improve spam & scam detection.
The first takeaway there is the distinction being drawn between scams and spam; right now, the app’s formal focus is only on spam (though we could see scams counting as “unwanted calls” in general). But going forward, Google Phone is preparing to be explicit about the difference. We also notice that this seems to describe a system for manually reporting calls.
Sharpie: Google’s Internal Codename for Scam Detection
“Sharpie,” if you haven’t surmised just yet, is Google’s internal codename for this system. All these functions and variables present in the app code shine further light on how Phone’s AI scam detection will work and arrive. Even though all the processing for scam detection will take place on your phone, limiting the privacy implications of using it, Google’s been clear that it’s not forcing this on anyone, and the system will be opt-in when it arrives.
Excitement for the Future of Scam Detection
While we still have plenty of questions about how Phone’s scam detection will arrive, and exactly how it will operate once it does, we’re hugely excited about the idea of it getting here. Scam calls are a serious problem affecting some of society’s most vulnerable members, and it’s not always easy to teach people how to recognize when they’re being taken advantage of. If we can offload some of that burden onto AI-powered systems, there’s the real potential to help protect a lot of people. Hopefully the progress we’ve spotted indicates that Google is well on its way to getting this system running. Will it debut with the Pixel 9 in just a few more weeks? We’ll know soon!