Google Points Android Users to Circle to Search for Text-Message Scam Checks
Google is calling attention to Circle to Search's ability to flag suspicious text messages through AI Overviews, a check that also runs through Google Lens on phones without the feature, including iPhones.
According to Android Authority, which tested the feature, the tool uses AI Overviews to flag a message that may be fraudulent, explain why it looks suspicious, and suggest what the user should do next. The check runs through Circle to Search, the gesture-based tool that lets users select content on screen to launch an immediate search.
For phones that do not have Circle to Search, Google Lens offers the same scam-checking function. That includes iPhones, where Lens is available as a standalone app.
Google has been building out a broader set of scam-detection tools across Android and its messaging apps, aimed at filtering suspicious messages and calls before users respond to them. The company has been steadily improving those features and expanding them to more users, and it has continued to announce new ones.
Availability, however, is uneven. Not every Android phone carries the full slate of scam-detection features, and newer additions have reached even fewer devices. Enhanced protection mode in Google Messages, for example, is limited to a smaller group of phones than the older, more widely distributed capabilities.
The Circle to Search scam check sits at the more accessible end of that range. Because it relies on a feature that has shipped broadly across Android and on a Lens app that is available on other platforms, it gives users without native scam detection a way to verify a message before acting on it.