Bharti Airtel has stepped up its fight against spam by expanding its AI-powered spam detection system to include international calls and messages. This move comes in response to a recent 12% surge in spam activity originating from overseas networks, as scammers try to sidestep tighter domestic regulations.
In a significant update, Airtel’s system will now detect and alert users about spam calls and SMS from both Indian and international numbers. To make these alerts more accessible across the country, notifications will be available in ten regional languages—Hindi, Marathi, Bengali, Gujarati, Tamil, Kannada, Malayalam, Telugu, Punjabi, and Urdu.
Initially rolled out for Android users, these multilingual spam alerts are expected to be extended to more languages and platforms in the future. Importantly, all features will be activated automatically and come at no additional cost to Airtel customers.
Siddharth Sharma, Director of Marketing and CEO of Connected Homes at Bharti Airtel, said, “After closely reviewing customer feedback, we’ve tailored our solutions to reflect India’s linguistic diversity. With spam traffic increasingly shifting to international sources, expanding our AI-powered system to scan calls and messages from global numbers was the next logical step.”
Since its launch in September 2024, Airtel’s AI spam filter has flagged more than 27.5 billion spam calls—roughly 1,560 per second—helping reduce the volume of spam calls received by users by 16%, according to company data.
