Airtel Africa has announced that its Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered spam detection service, Spam Alert, has identified more than 205 million spam SMS messages across 13 of its markets in just six months.
The service, available free of charge to all subscribers, automatically detects suspicious messages, prefixes them with “SPAM Alert,” and provides real-time updates, eliminating the need for users to download third-party applications to manage unwanted SMS.
So far, Airtel Africa has rolled out Spam Alert in Nigeria, Kenya, Zambia, Uganda, Gabon, Congo Brazzaville, Malawi, Madagascar, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Tanzania, Chad, and Niger. Seychelles is expected to follow soon.
Kenya recorded the highest number of flagged spam messages at 68 million, followed by Tanzania with 47 million and Zambia with 33 million. Since the launch of the service, Airtel Africa reports a 12% overall reduction in spam, with Nigeria seeing the steepest decline at 84%.
“We are proud to pioneer an advanced tech solution powered by AI in tackling spam messages that are a major concern in Africa as smartphone penetration increases,” said Airtel Africa CEO Sunil Taldar.
“This free service is yet another demonstration of our commitment to consistently innovate to deliver an unmatched experience and safer network to our customers.”
The Spam Alert system uses AI to analyse SMS in real time, assessing factors such as sender behavior and frequency of messages before marking them as spam.
