Airtel has announced two major upgrades to its AI-based spam detection system, aiming to further shield users from unwanted communication. Building on the success of its tool launched in September 2024, which flagged over 27.5 billion spam calls, the telecom giant is now introducing multilingual spam alerts and international spam detection capabilities.
Starting April 21, users will begin receiving spam alerts for both calls and SMS in one of ten regional languages of their choice. This move is designed to cater to India’s vast linguistic diversity and comes after extensive customer feedback analysis. Airtel has also shared plans to add more languages in the future.
In addition to this, the AI tool’s coverage now extends to detect spam originating from international numbers—a necessary response to a 12% surge in foreign spam calls over the past six months. Scamsters are reportedly shifting operations overseas in response to Airtel’s crackdown on domestic spam, prompting the expansion.
“Our commitment to our users drives every decision we make,” said Siddharth Sharma, Director of Marketing and CEO of Connected Homes at Bharti Airtel. “These enhancements reflect our focus on protecting customers from evolving spam tactics, while also respecting their language preferences.”
Currently, vernacular spam alerts are only available to Android users. All features are free and will be automatically activated for all Airtel customers—no manual setup required.
Since its rollout, the spam detection tool has contributed to a 16% reduction in spam calls and is now intercepting approximately 1,560 spam calls every second. Airtel’s team of engineers and data scientists continues to fine-tune the system to stay ahead of emerging threats.
