19 September 2025
Bharti Airtel has reported promising results from its recent anti-fraud initiatives, including the deployment of an AI-powered spam detection system. The company's efforts appear to be paying off, with official data indicating a substantial reduction in cybercrime incidents and financial losses across its network.
According to statistics released this week by the Ministry of Home Affairs’ Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (MHA-I4C), Airtel’s network experienced a 68.7% decrease in the value of financial losses attributable to cybercrime from September 2024 to June 2025. During the same period, overall cybercrime incidents saw a decline of 14.3%, demonstrating the effectiveness of the new security measures introduced shortly after the AI system’s launch.
Gopal Vittal, Airtel’s Vice Chairman and Managing Director, highlighted the system's achievements, revealing that since installation, it has identified over 48.3 billion spam calls and blocked 320,000 fraudulent links. Vittal emphasized that these accomplishments are just the beginning of a broader effort: “we see this as small steps in a much larger fight. We will continue to innovate and invest heavily in this area until our networks are free of digital spam and scam.”
The AI-driven spam detection solution employs a proprietary algorithm that operates at both the network and IT systems layers. It analyses caller and sender usage patterns, call and SMS frequency, and call duration, cross-referencing this data against known spam patterns in real time to identify and block malicious activity. The system also alerts customers to potentially harmful links in text messages by comparing them against a centralized database of blacklisted URLs. Additionally, it can detect anomalies such as frequent IMEI changes, which are often indicative of fraudulent behaviour.
Since April 2025, the system has extended its capabilities to screen international voice calls and messages, while in May, Airtel introduced a comprehensive solution to detect and block malicious links across all forms of communication on its network in real time. Airtel’s ongoing investments in AI and cybersecurity reflect its commitment to creating a safer digital environment for its users and reducing cyber threats across the country.
