WhatsApp Launches AI-Powered Scam Alert to Combat $425 Million in Fraud Losses

WhatsApp Fights Back Against Scammers With New AI Alert Tool - CNET

Aaron covers what's exciting and new in the world of home entertainment and streaming TV.... Read full bio Meta announced on Wednesday that it's rolling out a new tool, Scam Alert, to thwart con artists on WhatsApp. The optional feature, currently in beta testing, will run an on-device machine learning model to flag scam messages without giving WhatsApp, Meta or any other entity access to your private conversations. To take part in the feature, you must turn on the Scam Alert tool in WhatsApp's settings menu. From there, the AI tool will be automatically downloaded to your phone. You can disable the feature at any time. Scam Alert operates in the background by classifying incoming text messages from unknown senders. It looks at communication patterns associated with scams on the app, such as requests for personal information, an urgent tone and deliberate trust-building tactics used in romance-baiting scams, in which scammers create a fake emotional bond before asking for financial assistance. WhatsApp will display a banner warning of a potential scam in a message that only the recipient will see. To move forward, you can either block the sender, report the conversation, ignore the warning or trust the unknown sender. That last option removes the warning flag and stops future alerts for that conversation. Since this is an AI tool we're talking about, it's constantly learning, which means you can choose to share the last five messages from a trusted sender directly with WhatsApp to help keep the model accurate. This part of the feature doesn't happen on its own; You must opt in to share this data. Scam Alert is currently in limited beta, and Meta hasn't yet announced the feature's full public launch timeline. A Meta spokesperson didn't immediately reply to a request for comment. WhatsApp is the most popular messaging app in the world, with over 3 billion people using it daily. The Federal Trade Commission reported that, in 2025 alone, consumers lost $2.1 billion to social media scams. On WhatsApp specifically that year, Americans lost $425 million.

Meta adds AI screening to detect WhatsApp scams

Meta is launching an optional Scam Alert feature on WhatsApp that uses on-device machine learning to flag suspicious messages. Earlier this year, Meta also launched scam detection for device linking requests on WhatsApp. The new Scam Alert feature, which is rolling out in a limited beta, shows users a warning if a chat seems like a scam: If the model identifies a message as a likely scam attempt, the user sees a warning in the chat, which is not visible to the other person. From there, the user can decide what to do: block, report, or continue the conversation. If they decide that a warning is incorrectly flagged, the user can mark the chat as trusted, in which case the warning is removed and Scam Alert will not flag that chat again. If a user marks that they trust a chat, they can also opt in to share the last 5 messages received with WhatsApp to help improve the feature's accuracy. With more than 3 billion users, WhatsApp is among the largest areas of scam activity, like wire transfers and pig butchering scams. The FTC said victims reported losing $425 million to scams via WhatsApp alone, out of more than $2.1 billion lost to social media scams in 2025. Meta says "no message content leaves the user device for classification" when its scam detection feature is turned on and nothing is "auto-reported to WhatsApp, Meta, or anyone else." Users can also turn off Scam Alert at any time.

WhatsApp's new Scam Alert feature will flag scam messages while keeping your chats private

Meta's new AI model will warn you about scams without breaking encryption. Scammers have been targeting WhatsApp users for years, and the numbers prove it. The FTC says victims reported losing $425 million to scams on WhatsApp alone, part of a broader $2.1 billion lost to social media scams in 2025. Now Meta is fighting back with Scam Alert, a new optional feature rolling out in limited beta that flags suspicious messages using artificial intelligence, all without ever reading your actual conversations. How does Scam Alert catch scams without breaking encryption? Scam Alert runs an AI model directly on your phone instead of on Meta's servers. Once you turn it on, the app downloads that model and uses it to scan incoming messages from people outside your contacts, checking for patterns tied to known scams like conversational structure and specific language cues. Recommended Videos Meta says no message content ever leaves your device for this classification, and nothing gets automatically reported to WhatsApp or Meta unless you choose to report it yourself. This keeps the feature compatible with WhatsApp's end-to-end encryption, since your private conversations will never reach Meta's servers. What happens when a scam gets flagged? If the model catches a likely scam, you will see a warning inside that specific chat, visible only to you but not the sender. From there, you can block the sender, report the conversation, or simply continue chatting if you want. If a warning turns out to be wrong, you can mark that chat as trusted, and Scam Alert will stop flagging it going forward. Whenever you mark a chat as trusted, you can also choose to share the last five messages with WhatsApp to help improve the model's future accuracy. The Scam Alert feature builds on Meta's earlier scam detection work covering suspicious device linking requests, adding another layer of AI-powered protection across the platform.