Airtel Kenya has launched an AI-powered Spam Alert Service, which will, at no extra cost, end the numerous spam messages and calls.
The new service available to all Airtel Kenya subscribers provides a two-layer protection against scammers and fraudsters. The AI tool, Africa’s first spam alert, will also stop unsolicited promotional marketing messages.
According to the company, its new AI will stop all spam, which refers to unsolicited SMS messages, without reading specific messages on a user's phone. This is to retain privacy for all subscribers.
Airtel says the innovative AI-powered solution classifies suspicious SMS messages as ‘Suspected SPAM’ by analysing over 250 parameters in the messaging service in real time. This includes the sender's usage patterns, such as SMS frequency and geographical spread of targets.
“The Airtel Al Spam Alert Service is designed to filter all SMS through a proprietary dual-layer protection: one layer at the network level and the other at the IT systems level, processing over 18 million messages, each in 2 milliseconds,” the company said in a statement.
This new tool will end the reliance on third-party software to flag spam messages while offering privacy to customers.
The AI tool goes beyond halting the messages, alerting users of malicious weblinks received via SMS to warn users against accidentally clicking on suspicious links. This is achieved through scanning every SMS in real time for blacklisted URLs.
Airtel’s Spam Alert Service is critical, as a 2019 Truecaller Insights Report shows that an average Truecaller user in Kenya received approximately 102 spam SMS messages per month, totalling about 1,224 spam messages per year.
"The Al spam alert service is the first of its kind in the Kenyan market, and it fosters our dedication towards groundbreaking solutions aimed at a better customer experience,” said Airtel Kenya Managing Director Ashish Malhotra at the launch in Nairobi.
Adding, “With the new AI-powered spam alert, we are enabling our customers to be more vigilant to fraud attempts on their phones and to have a better experience of our services.”
Airtel insists the new tool will be available to subscribers of the Airtel SIM services as a value-added feature of their subscription at no extra cost.
The service does not require any additional application downloads and is automatically activated for all Airtel customers.