Why Google Photos is asking for an update so often?

Many users noticed that Google Photos app prompts an update pop-up inside the app quite often. At the same time, the update button leads to Google Play where you can see that your version is up-to-date. The remaining question is - why does it update so often without bringing any new features?

There are several kinds of updates that are happening in Google Photos:

Client app updates that are coming from Google Play - these updates might have new features inside or just contain bug fixes as well.
In-app client updates inside the app - this is the way how Google can push necessary updates to the app without asking you do download it on Google Play. Normally it can be related to a configuration change or it could be an update to their in-app ML model that is doing all the AI magic.
Server-side updates - normally enable new features that are already supported by the client app but that are rolling out in waves. That's the reason why someone might have a feature that you don't and also that is the reason why their change logs on Google Play are not super detailed. They are not releasing new features to all users at the same time in most cases. I am still waiting for a new video editor, for example, that was announced a month ago.

It's very likely that frequent in-app updates are happening in order to improve and update its own ML model. This ML model leaves inside your Android client and unique per device.

Tester Context:

📲 Google Photos is an official gallery app by Google that implements machine learning features.
📲 No public beta version is available for Google Photos app.