Google’s Phone App to Support Always-On Recording: A Call Notes Teardown

AI

📝 Key Points of This Article

• Google’s Phone app may soon support full “always-on” call recording for its “Call Notes” feature.
• An APK teardown of the Google Phone app version v216 revealed new resource code for “Android AICore” model downloading and an “Always Record” setting.
• This suggests that “Call Notes” could be updated to automatically record every call and generate AI-powered summaries based on those recordings.

The “Google Phone” app on Google Pixel devices (excluding the Pixel 9a, but including the Pixel 9 series and later) already features “Call Notes,” which incorporates AI-powered call summarization.

It appears that “Call Notes” will see deeper integration with “Android AICore.” Beyond the current manual activation or automatic recording for callers not in your Google Contacts, the feature may soon support full “always-on” call recording. This discovery was made through an app teardown.

An analysis of the app files from the Google Phone app version v216 update, released on Thursday, April 2, 2026, confirms the addition of resource code related to “Android AICore” model downloading and an “Always Record” setting as part of the “Call Notes” functionality.

<string name="call_recording_always_record_dialog_message_pixel9_or_above">...Call Recording may later be upgraded to also generate a transcript and summary of the conversation (Call Notes) on some devices, while maintaining your Call Recording recording and deletion settings.</string>
<string name="call_recording_aicore_needs_model_download">Download the AICore model to use this feature</string>
<string name="call_recording_aicore_downloading_model_summary">Downloading…</string>
<string name="call_recording_aicore_downloading_model_with_progress_summary">Downloading… %1$.1f%%</string>

<string name="call_recording_always_record_dialog_message_pixel9_or_above">...（前略）通話の録音機能は、今後、一部のデバイスで会話の文字起こしと要約（通話メモ）も生成するようにアップグレードされる可能性があります。その場合も、通話の録音機能による録音と削除の設定は維持されます。</string>
<string name="call_recording_aicore_needs_model_download">この機能を使用するには AICore のモデルをダウンロードしてください</string>
<string name="call_recording_aicore_downloading_model_summary">ダウンロードしています…</string>
<string name="call_recording_aicore_downloading_model_with_progress_summary">ダウンロードしています… %1$.1f%%</string>
<string name="call_recording_aicore_feature_unavailable_summary">通話の録音を有効にしています</string>

While “Call Notes” currently integrates with “Android AICore” internally, the upcoming implementation of an AI model downloading feature is expected to allow for more flexible enhancements. Along with this, the “Always Record” setting is likely to be rolled out, enabling automatic recording for every call, followed by an AI-generated summary based on the recorded audio.

Google Phone App Link