Google’s artificial intelligence comes to Android and now we’re in the soup: its native app provides access to the chatbot and assistant that aims to replace the traditional Google Assistant. It has also made its way to applications like Gmail, where search engine companies write emails for us and summarize response strings.

We knew Gemini would have a corner in “Google Messages”, Google’s RCS (also SMS) messaging app. It’s finally arrived on my Android phone, and I’ve been able to test it out: It’s a powerful weapon I can use, albeit with the same benefits (or rather most of them) as its native app. Fight spam and scams. More precisely, getting to know them is not an easy task as they have gained credibility.

Spam and scam messages are more reliable than ever

Fraud through both calls and text messages is on the agenda: impersonation of the DGT, the Post Office, lost packages that we have to collect, a so-called SMS to log into the bank… and for a long time to come. Not a day goes by without a scam reaching my smartphoneand if not, many other spam with offers on telephone and electricity tariffs.

Detecting them is sometimes not an easy task because as they proliferate, there are websites better designed to phish us. All is not lost when we fall and enter the link they usually add: we can take certain actions to prevent our data from being stolen.

Now as I said, Determine which are scams and which are notIt’s starting to get complicated. This is exactly what Gemini helped me with in “Google Messages”. I have long used it as the default application to manage SMS, and I also use RCS to communicate with some contacts.

As of now, these are my favorite apps for detecting malicious SMS: I don’t need to get out of this For AI to check the reliability of the text message. It literally takes a few seconds for the servers to respond to Gemini.

Gemini detects spam or scam

Gemini’s arrival in “Google Messages” didn’t really excite me at first. Being able to access AI from somewhere else seemed a bit useless to me. Google was responsible for providing useful tools to Android and also for poisoning the system and its applications, especially Gemini.

But I was completely wrong, I just needed to figure it out. Since it’s in the messaging app… why not use it for a messaging-related purpose? In this implementation, Gemini does not have the ability to create images or play music as in the assistant version, but its good understanding of human language enables tasks that we only have to imagine.

I wish I could access my messages to make this even easier, because this procedure I use Gemini as a “detector” of spam and scamswithout leaving the application:

• I tap the Gemini icon at the bottom of the screen. Or, if you fail, in the conversation (appears when you open it for the first time).
• I’m telling you what I need prompt is important: “I need you to be a spam and scam SMS detector. Then I will send you the SMS I received.”

• When I returned later, I found one of the last suspicious text messages: I pressed “Copy” with my finger, returned to Gemini and pasted the message.
• Gemini analyzes the message and gives me a detailed response explaining why it is not a scam, spam, or has any negative intent.

An asterisk in case it happens to you like it did to me: If the suspicious SMS was written in another language, when you paste it into a conversation with Gemini, ask him a simple question in Spanish: is it trustworthy? Otherwise, it will respond in the language of the attached SMS.

There are situations where I have doubts: Receiving a message conflicts with waiting for a package, for example, and I ask Google’s AI before taking the risk by entering the SMS link. Entering this link is the first step so that impersonate our identity or steal sensitive information. The good thing is that you don’t need to take risks with Gemini.

Cover image | Xataka Pepu Ricca for Android

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