Airtel and Google have partnered to add AI-powered spam and fraud filters to Rich Communications Services (RCS) messaging in India. RCS is a messaging standard built into Android phones that supports read receipts, high-quality media sharing, and verified business messaging, making it a carrier-backed upgrade to traditional SMS.
Under the partnership, Airtel’s network intelligence combines with Google’s RCS platform to run real-time checks on business messaging.
Notably, an Airtel spokesperson told TechCrunch that the company “had not onboarded Google because we first wanted RCS messages to be routed through the Airtel spam filter”. The condition has now been met, enabling the partnership.
What the partnership does
Users receiving messages through Google Messages on Android get five protections:
- Sender identity validated through telecom-backed business verification
- Do Not Disturb (DND) preferences respected by categorising messages as promotional or transactional
- Spam business messages blocked before they reach users’ devices
- Malicious domains filtered through a multi-tier threat detection system
- Messages throttled from senders jointly flagged by Airtel and Google’s AI filters
For enterprise brands, the core pitch is sender verification, where customers can confirm a message is genuinely from their bank or telecom provider rather than a fraudster impersonating one.
What it does not cover
The protections apply only to messages received through Google Messages. They do not extend to WhatsApp, Telegram, or any other over-the-top (OTT) platform, meaning the bulk of where Indians actually communicate remains outside this framework. India is WhatsApp’s largest market globally, with over 853 million users according to World Population Review, underlining the scale of the gap this partnership does not address.
This is not a new gap. During consultations on the Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations (TCCCPR) amendment, telcos pushed the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) to extend spam regulation to OTT platforms. As MediaNama has reported, TRAI steered clear of doing so, in part because the regulator does not have direct jurisdiction over internet-based services. Its authority covers only internet pipelines via telecom service providers, not the platforms that run on top of them.
The regulatory backdrop
Airtel claims to have blocked 71 billion spam calls and 2.9 billion spam SMSes over the last 18 months, contributing to a claimed 68.7% drop in financial losses from fraud on its network. Separately, TRAI issued over 731,000 notices to unregistered telemarketers in 2025, disconnected over 184,000 telecom resources, and received 3.1 million consumer complaints about unsolicited commercial communication during the year, underlining that spam remains a live and growing problem on regulated channels.
MeitY said in April 2025 it would engage with…
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