Kenya has recorded more than 205 million spam short messages (SMS) messages, as per Airtel Africa’s Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered detection service, Spam Alert.
Tanzania and Zambia come second and third place with 47 million and 33 million messages, respectively.
“This free service is yet another demonstration of our commitment to consistently innovate to deliver an unmatched experience and safer network to our customers,” Airtel Africa CEO, Sunil Taldar, said.
The service, which is available to all subscribers at no cost, identifies and prefixes the SMS with “SPAM Alert” and provides real-time updates, with the immediate impact being the elimination of the need to download additional applications to manage spam.
Airtel has so far rolled out the service in 13 of its 14 markets, namely Nigeria, Kenya, Zambia, Uganda, Gabon, Congo Brazzaville, Malawi, Madagascar, DRC, Rwanda, Tanzania, Chad, and Niger. Seychelles will launch soon.
Overall, there has been a 12 percent reduction in spam messages since the launch of the Airtel Africa SPAM Alert service, with Nigeria recording the highest drop of 84 percent.
Airtel’s Spam Alert service uses AI to analyse and classify SMS messages as “SPAM ALERT” based on various parameters, including the sender’s usage patterns and SMS frequency in real time.
