From The Verge · Emma Roth · · 1 min
Amazon’s Alexa Can Now Spot Fake Emails and Texts
Amazon's AI assistant can now check suspicious messages against the company's complete communication records to combat scams.
In brief
Amazon's AI assistant can now check suspicious messages against the company's complete communication records to combat scams. You can ask Alexa for Shopping to instantly verify whether a suspicious text, call, or email genuinely came from Amazon. Originally reported by The Verge.
Alexa targets fake Amazon messages
Amazon is tackling impersonation scams by letting customers use its AI assistant to verify suspicious communications.
Cross-referencing against internal records
Alexa for Shopping analyzes a message's sender, formatting, and content while checking it against every real message Amazon has ever sent.
“against a record of every message Amazon has sent”
High standard for verification
The assistant will only confirm a message is legitimate when it is entirely sure, such as verifying specific one-time login passcodes.
“completely certain”
Next steps for suspicious messages
If Alexa determines a message is fraudulent, it instructs users to check their orders directly in the app and reach out to customer support.
More tools against fraud
Customers can also forward suspicious emails to verify@amazon.com, or use Alexa's new product-tracking features to stay updated on new releases.
The bottom line
You can ask Alexa for Shopping to instantly verify whether a suspicious text, call, or email genuinely came from Amazon.
