How to detect scammy texts using Google Circle to Search and Lens

It feels like you simply cannot look at your messaging app these days without seeing a potential scam. That’s because it’s flooded with dodgy messages – from random numbers promising untold riches or demanding immediate payment for a package you definitely did not order. It is exhausting.

These scams are getting increasingly convincing too. That’s because scammers have been using modern tools to craft subtle traps that are harder to spot. But thankfully, the fight is being joined by Google with some fresh artillery. The company is updating Circle to Search and Google Lens with the ability to sniff out these digital cons.

How to use

Using it is actually simple. If you are on an Android device, you just need to long-press the home button or the navigation bar to trigger the overlay. Then, simply circle the suspicious text. Once that is done, the heavy lifting is handled by Google’s systems. A pop-up – known as an AI Overview – will appear on your screen.

This is the same smart summary that you see on the top of Google Search. Except in this case, it pulls context from the web to explain exactly why the message might be dangerous. It even suggests what you should do next so you aren’t left panicking.

Turns out, you don’t even need to directly launch Circle to Search with gestures to make it work, as it can be accessed through Google Lens as well. You just have to snap a screenshot of the message first. Then, open the Google app, tap into Lens, and select the image you just took.

Where's the update?

This update arrives at around the same time as the wider Android 16 QPR2 update – a quarterly platform release that usually brings feature drops to the operating system.

You’ll not have to wait for this particular update, though, because scam detection is already being rolled out globally. However, it was noted by Google that it might only appear when their systems are more confident in the result.

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The update also includes other safety tweaks, like a way to mark outgoing calls as urgent and a faster method to bail on unwanted group chats.