What you need to know
- AICore may temporarily use up large storage space by updating AI models in the background on your device.
- Google keeps new and old AI models for up to three days as a security measure during updates.
- The storage used by AICore is automatically released once the new AI model is confirmed to be stable.
If you have the AICore app installed on your Android phone and have noticed that it takes up an unusually large amount of storage, Google has finally explained why this is happening.
In recent years, companies like Google and Samsung have been implementing AI in their devices. On most flagships android phonesa lot of that functionality is handled by the AICore app.
The AICore application is essentially a system service that turn on the Gemini Nano device on Android. Enables private and offline AI features such as smart replies and notification summaries on devices like the Pixel 10 Pro. But if you’ve noticed that it uses a lot of storage, you’re not alone: some users have reported it. occupying up to 11GB.
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Google has now updated its AICore Support Page to explain this behavior. The company says that “occasionally you will find that this service uses a larger amount of storage than expected.” According to the support page, this happens when updating to a new version of an AI model in the background.
To make sure everything works reliably, AICore temporarily keeps the old and new versions of the AI model on your device for up to three days. This acts as a failsafe, allowing the system to roll back instantly if something goes wrong during the update, without needing to download large files again.
Android Central’s opinion
I understand why Google is doing this and it’s a smart fail-safe solution. But more than 10 GB for a background service is still crazy. At the very least, there should be a way to limit or manage this manually.
Google also says that this additional storage is automatically freed up once the update is confirmed to be stable, so no action is necessary.
Honestly, this approach makes sense. If the app deleted the previous model immediately and the update failed, you would have to re-download several gigabytes of data and lose access to AI features in the meantime. This method makes the entire process more reliable.
