Apple’s iOS 27 update was supposed to help the company close the gap in artificial intelligence, but the improved Apple Intelligence feature is creating a new headache: it can silently consume around 15GB of internal storage after installation. If your iPhone’s available space has suddenly dropped, there is a simple workaround that does not require turning off Siri or changing your Apple Account region.
Reports from users who have already upgraded to iOS 27 show that Apple Intelligence takes up a significant amount of storage, though the exact figure varies. Some devices show as much as 16GB occupied, while others report closer to 9GB. What makes this especially frustrating is that the space disappears even in regions where Apple Intelligence is not officially available. iPhone owners in parts of the EU, for example, cannot use the feature but still find a large chunk of storage missing after the update.
Devices with smaller capacities are hit hardest. On a 128GB iPhone 16, iOS and Apple Intelligence can take up nearly 30% of the total storage, and that is before accounting for the space reserved for system updates.
Disabling Apple Intelligence or Siri entirely does not appear to bring the missing storage back. Apple also recommends against changing your Apple Account region to fix the issue, since that process may require canceling subscriptions or spending your remaining balance first.
The most reliable solution, discovered by Reddit users, is to switch Siri’s language to an unsupported variant. Apple Intelligence and Siri only work when both the device and Siri are set to US or UK English. If you still want to use Siri in English, try selecting Canadian, Irish, South African, or New Zealand English for Siri instead. This does not completely remove the feature, but it reduces Apple Intelligence’s storage footprint to around 100MB.
Default state • Siri in South African English • No AI on local storage
We tested this method by setting Siri to South African English, and the storage issue was resolved after a reboot.
Coincidentally, Apple has started running more aggressive ads for its iCloud storage service, encouraging customers to subscribe and back up their data to iCloud.
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