The celebration of Google I/O brought us a large number of surprises in the form of new services and functions from the American giant. In the vast majority of them, there was the same common denominator: the increasing presence of Artificial Intelligence. And it is precisely with this technology that Google wants to put an end to spam calls forever.
During yesterday, Google held Google I/O 2024. The annual conference in which the technology giant presents to its community all the advances that will mark the company’s timetable for the next 12 months. Throughout the presentation, there was the same common denominator that became the protagonist: Artificial Intelligence. Even more so if we take into account that just 24 hours before, OpenIA had also presented interesting news that distanced it even further from the rest of its competitors. Among which is Google.
Among the different innovations that Google introduced, there was one that caught special attention: the use of Gemini to block spam calls and scam attempts over the telephone. This is not the first time that Google has made a similar move; we have had Android caller ID alerting us to numbers that may be fraudulent for many years. However, it is the first time that he is going to do it in such a direct way.
No more spam calls
And what is Google’s proposal? Use Gemini so that it not only detects when it is a spam call based on the country of origin of the call or the number itself that is trying to contact us. But now Gemini will listen to our calls and will analyze the conversation we are having. At the moment in which you detect that some type of information does not fit within the context, A message will automatically appear informing us that it may be a fraudulent call, making a series of recommendations so that we do not fall into any cyber scam.
Initially, this feature will not be enabled by default. Since it lands on our devices, with a date yet to be determined, as users we will have to give Gemini permissions so that it can remain a listener on our calls.
User privacy
During the presentation, Google did not give more details about the operation of this new option by the American company. However, everything seems to indicate that this specific function could depend on Google Gemini Nano. Therefore, although there has not yet been official confirmation, it is possible that all management will be carried out locally and the extracted data will always remain on our devices.
Gemini will be in charge of detecting the “conversation patterns commonly associated with scams” in real time. During the presentation, Google gave the example of a scam related to the banking sector. In which the interlocutor posed as a bank employee who requested a series of data related to access to our account. When Gemini detected it, sent a warning to the user informing him of the attempted scam of which he was being subjected and launching a series of recommendations.
Although Gemini Nano can act locally, having Gemini as a listener in all conversations can generate some concern among users. We will have to wait for the details published by Google to know exactly how all our data will be processed.
