SCAMMERS, MEET THE BOUNCER! Google Messages for Android is rolling out a new Enhanced Protection mode against spam and scam texts, 9to5Google reported Friday, after Google announced it on its official blog earlier this month.
It’s opt-in. To turn it on, go to Google Messages settings > Protection & safety. Instead of an on/off toggle you get three choices: Enhanced protection, Standard protection, and “No protection (not recommended).” 9to5Google spotted it in the latest beta.
What you get: Scam Detection that taps Google’s cloud Gemini models to read the context of a conversation with an unknown sender and spot slow-burn scams faster than the on-device filter. Google says that analysis runs in its Private AI Compute system, where messages are encrypted and “private to you and inaccessible to anyone else, including Google.”
It also adds smarter link checks: on-device Gemini Nano plus real-time web signals judge whether a brand-new, uncatalogued link is trustworthy before you tap. That piece is limited to the Pixel 10 and up, Samsung’s Galaxy S26 series, Z Flip 8, Z Fold 8 and “other select devices.” And there are redesigned warnings that make you pause before tapping links from numbers not in your contacts.
Google says its scam detection already flags more than 5 million suspected scam calls and texts a month. Also coming, per Google: screen-share privacy that blanks out login and payment fields in Chrome during live screen shares (rolling out this month on Android 15+), and protection against scammers secretly turning on call forwarding to steal your one-time codes, starting early December on Pixel and select devices.
Bottom line for normals: privacy-wise, you’re choosing to let a cloud model look at texts from strangers in exchange for better scam catching. For most people getting fake bank and delivery texts, that’s a trade worth making.
Featured image: AI-generated editorial illustration by Bugle Blast.
Sources: 9to5Google, Google blog
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