Google is using Gemini to keep latest online scammers in check

What you need to know

• Google announced that it's using its AI to detect and combat new online scams on Chrome, Search, and Android.
• The tech giant claims that these advancements in AI technology have enabled Google to catch 20 times the number of scammy pages.
• For Chrome, users will see the browser spamming unwanted or malicious notifications from a scam website, and they will be given the option to either unsubscribe or view the content that was blocked.
• Google is using Gemini's Nano, an on-device approach that even spots scams that haven't been seen before. 

Google detailed in a Keyword post how it is currently keeping new online scams at bay with the help of Gemini. It released a report on how the tech giant has been working on detecting scams on Search, Chrome, and Android.

To start, the company says it has used Gemini's algorithms will quickly identify scammers' patterns and linguistic cues that are indicative of fraudulent activity, considering that scammers keep switching around their techniques, and don't stick to one pattern to get into people's online accounts and sensitive data.

Google says it's using Gemini to stay one step ahead of them: "Large language models have also helped us to scale our protections across languages to protect more people around the world," Google's report stated.

With these improvements, the tech giant says it's been able to sieve through vast quantities of text on the web, identify coordinated scam campaigns, and detect emerging threats on Search.

For instance, Google says it was able to reduce fake airline customer service scams by 80% this past year on Search. Making it less likely for users to accidentally call a scam airline number.

Additionally, even though it spotted a rise in misleading pages mimicking official visa or government services, the new AI protection "decreased scams impersonating official sites by more than 70%," the company added.

As for Chrome, even though its "Enhanced Protection" setting detects and takes down spam websites, Google says that Chrome is using Gemini Nano, directly on the computer, to make this protection even better.

Gemini Nano's algorithm is trained to spot dangerous websites instantly, even when the scams are new. Gemini Nano's LLM is good at understanding how scam websites look, which helps Chrome keep up with new tricks.

"We're already using this new AI-powered approach to protect users from remote tech support scams, one of the biggest online threats facing users today."

Google says it will train Gemini to spot a wide range of scams in the future.

Earlier this year, Google launched its on-device AI-powered Scam detection on Google Messages as well. This leverages Google's AI to automatically detect and flag potential malicious users. For texts, the AI will scan messages for "commonly associated with scams" and alert you to them within the thread.

Users can quickly report and block that user without a second thought to protect their data.