Summary

  • Google’s March 2025 Pixel Feature Drop and Android bundle focus heavily on AI-driven scam detection, with real-time alerts for both calls and messages to combat evolving fraud tactics.
  • Scam Detection for phone calls, leveraging Gemini Nano 2, is initially limited to Pixel 9 series users in the US, emphasizing on-device processing and user privacy.
  • Scam Detection for messages, part of the Android bundle, is rolling out to English-speaking users in the US, Canada, and the UK, offering real-time warnings for suspicious SMS, RCS, and MMS activity. It should be available on a wider range of devices.

Google’s latest March 2025 Pixel Feature Drop and Android bundle are bringing some powerful new features to our phones — some that we’ve spotted in leaks and rumors in the past, and others entirely new.

These include Gemini upgrades, an option to share your location (and view the location of others) right within the Find My Device app, automatic suggestions for Pixel screenshots, greater step tracking accuracy with the Pixel Watch, and a lot more.

However, the clear highlight of the drop is undoubtedly AI-powered scam detection, which aims to identify conversations that seem harmless, “but turn dangerous over time.”

A Pixel 9 Pro with the flashlight turned on against a pink backdrop


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Scam Detection for calls and messages has been available in beta since November last year. Roughly four months in, Google thinks the tools are ready for prime time, but not across the board.

From the looks of it, scam detection for calls is currently only rolling out for English-speaking Pixel 9 series users in the US. Scam Detection for messages, on the other hand, is rolling out now to English-speaking users in the US, Canada, and the UK, with plans to expand to more countries soon. The latter is also part of Google’s Android feature bundle, suggesting that it is not limited to the Pixel portfolio. Google didn’t mention eligible devices, though we’d imagine on-device AI support would be a must.

Here’s what users can expect

Scam Detection for calls

An image highlighting a scam detection warning for a phone call.

Source: Google

Powered by the Phone by Google app, the feature was tested on the Pixel 9 with Gemini Nano, and other unnamed on-device machine-learning models for Pixel 6+ users. Ultimately, Google found that Gemini Nano outperformed all other models, and as a result, the feature is currently only rolling out to Pixel 9 series users. For what it’s worth, older Pixel devices do have access to Gemini Nano, and Google’s wording surrounding the tool only making its way to the Pixel 9 indicates that Scam Detection for phone calls is powered by Gemini Nano 2, AKA, Gemini Nano with Multimodality.

Considering that the feature processes all of your calls on-device, none of your phone call audio or associated transcripts are recorded, saved on your device, and/or sent to Google’s servers. The feature will be disabled for all by default, to enable it:

  1. Open the Phone app.
  2. Tap the three-dot menu on the top right and tap on Settings.
  3. Scam Detection → enable Scam Detection.

If enabled, both you and the person on the other side of the line will hear a beep sound at the start of calls. This is essentially to notify participants that the feature is on.

According to feedback from our beta users, these types of alerts have already helped people be more cautious on the phone, detect suspicious activity, and avoid falling victim to conversational scams.

Scam Detection for messages

Screenshot of the Scam Detection feature for Google Messages.

Source: Google

Scam Detection for messages is powered by Google Messages, and similar to its call-based counterpart, it runs completely on-device. None of your personal messages are saved and/or sent over to Google unless you choose to report a message. Only in that case will your device send the associated recent message and sender details to Google and your carrier.

The tool looks out for messaging patterns commonly associated with scams, and pushes out real-time warnings if it detects suspicious activity, as seen in the short GIF above. It scans through SMS, RCS, and MMS messaging.

Unlike Scam Detection for calls, detection via Google Messages is enabled by default, but only applies to conversations with non-contacts.