Google announced on Thursday that it is launching a new artificial intelligence defense system to help fight scams on Chrome. The tech giant will start using its on-device large language model (LLM) on desktop devicesGemini Nano, to protect users from online fraud. In addition, Google will also launch a new artificial intelligence warning feature for Chrome on Android to help users identify spam notifications.
According to Google, Chrome Safe Browsing's Enhanced Protected Mode offers the highest level of protection, offering up to twice the level of protection against phishing and other online threats compared to the browser's Standard Protected Mode. Now, Google will leverage Gemini Nano to provide an extra layer of defense to enhance user protection against online scams.
Google says this on-device approach will provide immediate insight into risky websites to protect users from scams, including those they've never seen before.
“Gemini Nano’s LLM is ideally suited for this purpose because it distills the diversity and complexity of sites, helping us adapt to new scams more quickly,” Google said in a blog post.
The company has begun using this AI defense technology to protect users from remote technical support claims. Google plans to expand this defense technology to Android devices in the future and even cover more types of scams.
As for the new AI warning feature, Google notes that if you enable notifications, the risk from scam sites may extend beyond the site itself through notifications. Malicious websites may use notifications to try to trick victims, so Chrome can now help you identify malicious, spam, or misleading notifications on Android.
You'll now receive a warning when machine learning models on Chrome devices flag notifications as suspected scams. Users can choose to unsubscribe or view blocked content. If you believe the warning was displayed in error, you can allow all subsequent notifications from the site.
As part of today's announcement, Google announced that it has used artificial intelligence technology to stop fraud in search, detecting and blocking hundreds of millions of fraudulent results every day. Google said its artificial intelligence-based fraud detection system has helped block 20 times more scam pages.
For example, Google has seen an increase in criminals impersonating airline customer service personnel and defrauding users seeking help. The company said it has reduced cases of such scams by more than 80%, reducing the risk of users encountering fraudulent phone numbers in their searches.