Gemini Nano

Google’s small, on-device variant of the Gemini model family. Powers the Chrome Prompt API and is shipped to Chrome installations as a local model file.

Known operational characteristics (from this KB)

• Distribution channel: bundled into Chrome installations; reported by The Register (via [[2026-05-10-vizza-chrome-silent-llm]]) to be installed by default with opt-out, not opt-in.
• Disk footprint: model file weights.bin in a folder named OptGuideOnDeviceModel/. Reported size grew from ~3 GB (April 2025) to ~4 GB (November 2025); Chrome auto-reinstalls if the file is deleted.
• Enterprise control: disable via GenAILocalFoundationalModelSettings Chrome enterprise policy; Windows admins can also use registry edits.
• Telemetry / data flow: not documented in the sources captured in this KB. Open question for any regulated-entity deployment.

See also

• google
• ai-governance-au — embedded-AI / supply-chain relevance