Tech giant Google is taking its fight against the growing number of digital fraud cases in India to the next level. The company is expanding its AI-powered security measures by introducing in-device fraud detection for Pixel 9 devices and new screen-sharing alerts for financial apps. With the increasing number of new internet users in India and smartphones becoming primary tools for payments, shopping, and government services, there has also been a significant increase in digital fraud cases.
Google Aims to End Phone Fraud with Gemini Nano
According to Reserve Bank of India (RBI) data, more than half of bank fraud cases in 2024 originated from digital transactions, resulting in losses of approximately $58.61 million. Data from the Ministry of Home Affairs reveals that online frauds caused approximately $789 million in losses in the first five months of 2025.
Google announced on Thursday that it has expanded its real-time fraud detection feature, which uses the Gemini Nano model to analyze calls on-device and flag potential scams without recording audio or sending data to servers. This feature, which is off by default, only applies to calls from unknown numbers and emits a beep to alert participants during a call. However, Google confirmed that the feature will initially only work on Pixel 9 and later models and will be limited to English-speaking users. In a country where Android dominates 96% of the market, while Pixel devices hold less than 1%, these hardware and language limitations currently limit the feature’s reach.
The company also announced a pilot with financial apps like Navi, Paytm, and Google Pay to prevent scenarios where scammers trick victims into sharing their screens to obtain one-time passwords or PINs. The feature, which will work on devices running Android 11 or later, will provide one-tap alerts for users to end the call and stop screen sharing. Google stated that this feature will also display alerts in Indian local languages and that it plans to add more app partners to the system.
In addition to all these measures, Google actively uses its Play Protect service to prevent the sideloading of third-party apps that require sensitive permissions. The company announced that it has blocked more than 115 million malicious installation attempts this year and issues warnings for more than a million suspicious transactions through Google Pay each week. However, despite these measures, the continued presence of fake and misleading apps in the app store, bypassing review processes, has drawn criticism from Google, along with other giants like Apple. Police and security researchers continue to flag apps used in fraudulent activities, which remain in the store until action is taken.
While Google’s deployment of artificial intelligence tools to combat fraud is a significant step, it appears there are still many more steps to be taken to fully clean up the ecosystem. Would you want such advanced security measures enabled by default on your smartphone?
