Telecoms company, Airtel Africa, has revealed that its AI-powered spam alert service has reduced unwanted texts and spam traffic in Nigeria by 84% in 6 months. The development reflects the continued fight against fraudulent activities across the country.
Aside from the significant performance in Nigeria, Airtel revealed that the service has detected more than 200 million spam generally during the period under review. It added that the tool reduced spam SMS by 12% across its operations.
The latest performance further reinstates the company’s push to further strengthen subscribers’ protection from fraud amid a significant rise in mobile adoption across Africa. The spam alert service is available for all Airtel customers across 13 of its 14 markets.
Reacting to the development, Airtel Africa’s CEO, Sunil Taldar, explained that the free AI spam detection service is part of its commitment to protecting customers and delivering a safer network experience.
“We are proud to pioneer an advanced tech solution powered by AI in tackling spam messages that are a major concern in Africa as smartphone penetration increases,” he said.
The feature is currently available in markets such as Nigeria, Kenya, Gabon, Uganda, Congo Brazzaville, Malawi, Madagascar, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Tanzania, Chad, Zambia and Niger. Seychelles, Airtel’s smallest market, is expected to join soon.
The AI spam detection made an impact across key markets. Kenya recorded the highest number of spam messages detected at 68 million, followed by Tanzania and Zambia with 47 million and 33 million, respectively.
Recall that in July, Airtel Nigeria revealed that the spam alert service had prevented more than 9.6 million suspicious text messages on its network between March 13 and May 20, 2025. It explained that the flagged messages comprised 528,080 originating from Airtel users and 9,138,928 from other network providers.
Also Read: Airtel Africa plans IPO for mobile money unit with valuation of over $4 billion.
Spam SMS detection in India
Aside from Africa, the tool has been championing the fight against cybercrime in India, where Barti Airtel operates.
The Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre, Ministry of Home Affairs, revealed that the spam detection tool saw a 14.3% drop in overall cybercrime incidents on the Airtel network. Also, 48.3 billion spam calls were detected, and more than 3.2 lakh fraudulent links were blocked.
Furthermore, the agency explained that the tool contributed to a staggering 68.7% decrease in the value of financial losses. This validates the efficacy of Airtel’s fraud detection solution in curbing cybercrime and creating a safe network for its customers.
Since the tool was launched in India in September 2024, it has pioneered the move to curb the country’s spam menace. The tool was also India’s first network-based AI-powered Spam detection solution.
What you should know about the Airtel spam alert
Launched in March 2025, Airtel Africa’s AI-powered Spam Alert Service is a free, automatic service that identifies and warns users about suspicious SMS messages.
It analyses sender behaviour using over 250 parameters, such as SIM card changes and sender network behaviour, to detect spam without reading individual messages.
All Airtel subscribers in Africa are automatically included in the service, which requires no app download or setup, providing real-time protection against SMS fraud.
The Airtel Spam Alert service uses Artificial Intelligence to analyse a sender’s behaviour across more than 250 parameters. This includes how often a SIM card changes, the volume of messages sent, and the geographical spread of the numbers targeted.
With such capacity, the AI processes this information in milliseconds to identify potential spam messages before they reach the user. Subscribers then receive an immediate alert if an incoming SMS is flagged as potentially spam, with the message labelled “Suspected SPAM”.
