Google rolls out AI tools to protect Chrome users against scams

Google announced on Thursday that it’s rolling out new AI-powered defenses to help combat scams on Chrome. The tech giant is going to start using Gemini Nano, its on-device large language model (LLM), on desktop to protect users against online scams. It’s also launching new AI-powered warnings for Chrome on Android to help users be aware of spammy notifications.

Google notes that Chrome’s Enhanced Protection mode of Safe Browsing on Chrome offers the highest level of protection, offering users twice the protection against phishing and other online threats compared to the browser’s Standard Protection mode. Now, Google will use Gemini Nano to provide Enhanced Protection users with an additional layer of defense against online scams.

Google says this on-device approach will provide immediate insight into risky websites to protect users against scams, including those that haven’t been seen before.

“Gemini Nano’s LLM is perfect for this use because of its ability to distill the varied, complex nature of websites, helping us adapt to new scam tactics more quickly,” Google said in a blog post.”

The company is already using this AI-powered defense to protect users from remote tech support claims. Google plans to expand this defense to Android devices and even more types of scams in the future.

As for the new AI-powered warnings, Google notes that the risk from scammy sites can extend beyond the site itself through notifications if you have them enabled. Malicious websites can use notifications to try to scam you, which is why Chrome will now help you be aware of malicious, spammy, or misleading notifications on Android.

Now, when Chrome’s on-device machine learning model flags a notification as possibly being a scam, you will receive a warning. You can choose to either unsubscribe or view the content that was blocked. If you think the warning was shown incorrectly, you can allow all future notifications from that site.

As part of today’s announcement, Google shared that it has been using AI to stop scams in Search by detecting and blocking hundreds of millions of scammy results every day. Its AI-powered scam detection systems have helped to catch 20 times the number of scammy pages, Google says.

For example, Google has seen an increase in bad actors impersonating airline customer service agents and scamming people looking for help. The company says it has reduced these scams by more than 80%, decreasing the risk of users coming across a scammy phone number on Search.