Google is bringing more AI muscle to India’s fight against digital fraud, rolling out on-device scam detection for Pixel 9 devices and new screen-sharing alerts for financial apps.

Digital fraud continues to rise in India as more people come online for the first time and increasingly rely on smartphones for payments, shopping and accessing government services. Frauds involving digital transactions accounted for more than half of all reported bank fraud in 2024 — 13,516 cases resulting in losses of ₹5.2 billion (about $58.61 million), according to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). Online scams caused an estimated ₹70 billion (roughly $789 million) in losses in the first five months of 2025, the Ministry of Home Affairs said. Many incidents likely go unreported, either because victims are unsure how to file a complaint or wish to avoid additional scrutiny.

On Thursday, Google announced the expansion of its real-time scam detection feature, which uses Gemini Nano to analyze calls on-device and flag potential fraud without recording audio or sending data to Google’s servers. The feature is off by default and applies only to calls from unknown numbers, and it plays a beep during the conversation to notify participants. It debuted in the U.S. in March as a beta for English-speaking Pixel 9 users.

Google confirmed to TechCrunch that its on-device scam detection will initially work only on Pixel 9 and later models in India and will be limited to English-speaking users, with its warning also English only. That restricts its reach in a market where Android accounts for nearly 96% of smartphones, per StatCounter, but Pixel devices held less than 1% share in 2024. The language limitation is also notable in a country where most users primarily rely on non-English languages — an audience that Google and others like Amazon have acknowledged by adding support for Indian languages across their services in recent years.

The tech giant did say it was working to bring scam detection to non-Pixel Android phones, as well, without offering a timeline.

Google also announced a pilot in India with financial apps Navi, Paytm, and Google Pay aimed at limiting screen-sharing scams, in which fraudsters persuade victims to share their screens to obtain one-time passwords, PINs and other credentials during a call. The feature was first announced at Google I/O in May and initially tested in the U.K.

Users with devices running Android 11 or later will be able to access the alerts, which include a one-tap option to end the call and stop screen sharing. Google confirmed to TechCrunch that it plans to add more app partners and the feature will display alerts in Indian languages as well but did not provide details.

For several months, Google has also been using its Play Protect service to restrict predatory loan apps in India by blocking the sideloading of third-party apps that request sensitive permissions often exploited for fraud. The company said the service blocked more than 115 million such installation attempts this year. Google Pay, meanwhile, surfaces more than a million warnings each week for transactions flagged as potentially fraudulent, according to the company.

Google is also running its DigiKavach awareness campaign on digital fraud, which it said has reached more than 250 million people. The company has worked with the Reserve Bank of India to publish a public list of authorized digital lending apps and their associated non-banking financial companies to help limit malicious actors.

Earlier this year, Google launched a Safety Charter in India to expand its AI-driven fraud detection and security efforts, part of a broader plan to deploy more AI tools in the country to address rising fraud.

Yet Google still faces significant gaps in curbing digital fraud in India. The company — like Apple — has been questioned for allowing fake and misleading apps to appear on its app store despite review processes meant to block fraudulent submissions.

In recent years, police and security researchers have flagged investment and loan apps used in scams that remained available on the Play Store until intervention. These cases underscore the challenges Google faces in policing an ecosystem that dominates the country’s smartphone market.

Electric air taxi developer Joby Aviation is suing Archer Aviation over allegations its rival used stolen trade secrets extracted from a former employee to interfere in its business.

The lawsuit, filed Thursday in the Superior Court of California in Santa Cruz County, makes a series of allegations against Archer and George Kivork, a former Joby employee. Joby alleges Kivork, who was hired by Archer, stole trade secrets that were then used by Archer.

In the lawsuit, Joby alleges that two days before announcing his resignation, Kivork “exfiltrated a cache of highly valuable Joby filings containing confidential partnerships terms, business and regulatory strategies, infrastructure strategies for vertiports and airport access, and technical information about Joby’s aircraft and operations,” the complaint states.

Joby claims Archer approached one of its strategic partners and shared detailed information about confidential terms of its exclusive agreement with Joby. According to the complaint, this information was known to Kivork and contained in the files he allegedly stole.

“This is corporate espionage, planned and premeditated,” the complaint states. “Kivork and Archer’s behavior has left Joby with no choice but to bring this action to protect Joby’s valuable confidential and proprietary information.”

Archer was quick to strike back.

“Joby is turning to baseless litigation in an attempt to distract from its own shortcomings and slow down its leading competitor,” Eric Lentell, Archer’s chief legal and strategy officer said in an emailed statement to TechCrunch.

“Joby’s case is entirely without merit. The complaint, regarding a non-technical employee who recently joined Archer in a business development role, does not identify a single specific trade secret let alone any evidence of misappropriation,” said Lentell. “As Joby knows, Archer has implemented rigorous employee onboarding procedures to prevent against the very thing it is accused of. Joby is improperly attempting to weaponize the legal system to achieve through bad faith litigation what it cannot accomplish through fair competition. Archer remains focused on building the future of advanced aviation in America.”

Archer Aviation and Joby are both based in California and went public in 2021 via mergers with special purpose acquisition companies. Both are developing electric air taxis as well as pursuing defense applications to its technology.

For instance, Archer signed an exclusive deal with weapons manufacturer Anduril earlier this year to jointly develop a hybrid gas-and-electric-powered vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft for critical defense applications. Meanwhile, Joby signed an agreement with defense contractor L3Harris Technologies to “explore opportunities” to develop a gas-turbine hybrid VTOL aircraft that can fly autonomously.

The lawsuit puts the two competitors on a far more combative path.

Archer has been in the legal hot seat before, although that was ultimately settled.

Wisk, which is now a subsidiary of Boeing, sued Archer in 2021 for “brazen theft” of confidential information and intellectual property. Those files included over fifty trade secrets that Wisk alleged were stolen by a former employee who was later hired by Archer. The lawsuit dragged on for two years before the parties settled the legal dispute and agreed to collaborate.

WhatsApp is getting its own version of a status update feature, similar to Instagram Notes.

As on Instagram, the new feature allows users of the Meta-owned messaging app to post a short, text update that can be seen by others. In this space, you could let people know what you’re up to or what’s new in your life.

The company suggests users could also post something that could serve as a conversation starter, or they could use the space to share why they might not be available to talk at present.

While the addition may be new to many, the company points out in a blog post that this “About” feature, as it’s called, was actually WhatsApp’s first feature. Before WhatsApp focused on secure, private messaging, it allowed people to quickly share short updates like this.

With the feature’s relaunch, WhatsApp is making users’ “About” status more visible than before. Others will now be able to see your status at the top of their one-on-one chats with friends and users’ profiles. Plus, users can tap on someone’s About status in a chat to reply to it directly.

Like Instagram Notes, the WhatsApp About status will disappear in a day by default.

However, the company says users can adjust the timer if they want to have it disappear more quickly or stick around longer than 24 hours. Plus, users can decide whether their About status can be seen by just their contacts or if it’s more publicly visible.

At launch, the feature is not as robust as Instagram Notes, which also supports short, looping videos and offers integrations that let you share the music you’re streaming. But if the new feature sees wide adoption, those types of improvements could come in time.

WhatsApp says the feature is rolling out now to users on mobile devices starting this week.