The safeguards on smartphones are expanding, especially for Google 's renowned Pixel lineup, as the company rolled out its live 'Scam Detection' feature for the Phone app to catch criminals right on the act.

Google is rolling out two new AI-powered security features to Pixel 6 or newer devices. One observes call patterns to notify users about potential scammers on the default Phone app, and the other scans apps for malware and notifies users about live threats via Google Play Protect.

One of the Gemini AI-powered features Google introduced at I/O this year was a solution for never-ending scam calls. It has the capability to detect whether a call is suspicious while it's still ongoing and can alert you so that you could drop the call as soon as possible.

Scammers steal nearly $1 trillion annually, and most of it is through phone call fraud. With scammers becoming more sophisticated and harder to identify, Google's new Scam Detection will scan phone calls in real-time to protect users from fraud before it can occur.

Here's how the feature works. When you place or make a call, the onboard AI listens to your conversation. On the Pixel 9 series , Gemini Nano conducts the detection, while for the Pixel 6 and above, it's an older learning model.