What is AICore and why is it taking up so much space on your Android phone?

Google says AICore may temporarily use extra storage because it keeps both old and new AI model versions during background updates, up to 3 days.

Google has updated its AICore support page, providing an explanation for why the system service often balloons to take up gigabytes of your phone's storage.

According to the Mountain View tech giant, the reason why AICore's storage use spikes is that the service temporarily holds two versions of an AI model at once. When the system is updating to a new version of a model like Gemini Nano in the background, it keeps the old one handy for up to three days. This acts as a "fail-safe" that you can revert to if the new update has a bug, preventing a long re-download over a spotty connection. The company states the extra space frees up automatically once the new model is confirmed stable.

AICore was launched alongside Android 14 to serve as a background system service for on-device AI for Android. It is basically like a centralized manager that downloads, updates, and runs foundation models, most notably Google's Gemini Nano.

It also powers AI features across the OS, such as Magic Compose in Google Messages, Summarize in the Voice Recorder, Pixel Screenshots, Pixel Studio, Call Notes, and Smart Replies. While it started on the Pixel 8 Pro, it is now found on newer Pixels, Samsung Galaxy devices like the S24 line, and select phones from OnePlus and Xiaomi.

If you search places like r/Android or r/pixel_phones, you would find users wondering what this mysterious app is and why it is using up so many of their phone's resources. And it is not just storage issues. People are complaining about how AICore continuously runs in the background, consuming memory. On some newer devices like the Pixel 8 Pro, the OS actually locks away a significant portion of RAM exclusively for AICore and the Tensor chip's AI processor. Here is a review a frustrated user left on the AICore Play Store page:

STOP INSTALLING THIS. I have uninstalled it 5 times now and it keeps coming back. It eats up to 10GB of my storage, which I have to clear every single week when I do my weekly uninstall of this app. I don't want it, I don't use any of the AI functions on this app, and I have not given you any permissions to install this app on my paid device.

Perhaps the most egregious fact is that there is no simple "uninstall" button for AICore since it is a core system app. The best you can do is cripple it by navigating to Settings > Apps > See all apps > AICore, hitting "Disable", and then tapping the menu to "Uninstall Updates". This action purges the large downloaded models and stops the service. The only downside with this approach is that local AI features like offline smart replies or Pixel Screenshots will no longer function.

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Posted Tuesday 5 May 2026 at 7:15 am AEST (my time).

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