Google explains why AICore storage spikes during Gemini Nano updates on Android devices

Google AICore using more storage? That's by design

I've been writing about Android since 2011, with a focus on device reviews, Samsung and Google Pixel hardware, and the latest happenings in the ecosystem. In my entire writing career, I've reviewed more than 75 Android phones. Carrying both a Samsung or Pixel flagship and an iPhone as a daily driver provides me with deep insight into how Android works and how it compares to iOS. I have been writing for Android Police since 2021, covering news, how-tos, and features. You can find my previous work on Neowin, AndroidBeat, Times of India, iPhoneHacks, MySmartPrice, and MakeUseOf. When not working, I tend to mindlessly scroll through X, play with new AI models, or go on long road trips. You can reach out to me on X or drop a mail at [email protected]. AICore is a core system app that's found on almost all mid-range and premium Android devices. The system app is responsible for managing the on-device AI capabilities of an Android device, including running Gemini Nano. Every once in a while, users report that the AICore app is taking gigabytes of storage space on their devices. Google has now explained why this happens. Google's updated support document about AICore explains that the app may use a "larger amount of storage than expected." This happens because AICore updates the AI model to a new version in the background. More importantly, to avoid any reliability issues, AICore keeps both the old and new versions of the AI model on the device for up to 3 days. This ensures that if there's an issue with the new AI model, your phone can switch to the older AI version without downloading it again. Once AICore verifies that the new AI model is working properly, it deletes the old version to free up storage space. In some cases, users report AICore also taking more-than-usual battery and CPU usage. That's likely due to the app installing the updated AI model in the background. Let AICore manage its own storage Google's approach makes sense from a reliability standpoint. Most premium and flagship Android phones now ship with 256GB storage as standard. So, AICore taking gigabytes of space only poses a problem on phones with 128GB or less storage, as they may not have enough free space to store the old and new versions of the AI model together. Ironically, Google is one of the culprits here, as it sells the $999 Pixel 10 Pro with 128GB of storage. For phones with 256GB or larger NAND chips, AICore taking up gigabytes of storage space should only be a problem for power users or those who don't actively manage their phone's storage. On most Android phones, AICore typically takes around 7GB of storage space. In some cases, as explained by Google above, it may take as much as 11-12 GB of space. You can reclaim the storage space taken by AICore by disabling it. However, this would also turn off Gemini Nano-powered features like scam detection, Smart replies, summarization, enhanced grammar check, translation, and more.

Google explains why Android AICore occasionally takes up more storage

Android AICore lets you "run generative AI features directly on your Android phone or tablet's hardware." These models (Gemini Nano) are inherently large, but Google now has a more detailed explanation of why Android AICore storage occasionally spikes. AICore is available on Android 14 and higher for supported devices (processors). Google provides a list of which features and apps use the local model: More broadly, on-device AI is credited as allowing for enhanced privacy, offline functionality, and faster and more consistent performance: A Google support article now explains "Why storage use increases." When a new version of Gemini Nano is available, AICore "temporarily keeps both the old and new versions of the model for up to 3 days." This is intended as a "fail-safe [that] allows your phone to instantly revert to an older version if the new update encounters an error, rather than having to download gigabytes of data again."

Google finally explains why Android AICore keeps eating your storage -- and it actually makes a lot of sense

If you've ever glanced at your Android phone's storage breakdown and done a double-take at how much space AICore is consuming, you're not alone. It's one of those things that's easy to notice and hard to explain, and for a while, Google wasn't offering much clarity on it. That's changed now, and the explanation turns out to be more sensible than the mystery surrounding it suggested. AICore is the on-device AI backbone that powers a growing list of features on Android 14 and above -- smart replies in WhatsApp, scam detection in messages, real-time transcription, grammar correction, audio summarization, and more. It runs Gemini Nano locally on supported hardware, which means your data stays on your device, the features work without an internet connection, and there's no latency from bouncing a request off a remote server. The trade-off, as anyone who's installed a multi-gigabyte model knows, is storage. The storage spike has a simple explanation Google has now published a support article addressing the one thing that confused people most: why AICore's storage footprint sometimes balloons unexpectedly. The answer is that when a new version of Gemini Nano becomes available, AICore holds both the old and the new versions simultaneously for up to 3 days before clearing the original version. It's a precautionary measure. If the new model version encounters problems after installation, your phone can instantly revert to the previous version rather than re-download gigabytes of model data from scratch. It's the kind of sensible engineering decision that's obvious in hindsight, but Google probably should have communicated it sooner, given how much confusion it's caused. On-Device AI is worth the storage cost -- but Google needs to be upfront The broader case for on-device AI is genuinely compelling. Sensitive data never leaving your device is a meaningful privacy win in an era when everything seems to be vacuumed into the cloud somewhere. Features that work in airplane mode are more useful than they sound when you're somewhere with patchy connectivity. And local processing simply feels snappier than waiting on a server response. Recommended Videos But the goodwill only stretches so far when users are left staring at an unexplained storage spike with no context. Documenting it now is the right call -- it just shouldn't have taken this long to get there.