Generative AI apps have experienced remarkable growth in the first half of 2025, with downloads reaching 1.7 billion and in-app revenue doubling to $1.87 billion.
According to a Sensor Tower report this compares to 1 billion downloads and $932 million in revenue in the second half of 2024.
Users spent 15.6 billion hours on these apps across 426 billion sessions in H1 2025, up from 8.5 billion hours in H2 2024.
Asia led download growth with a 42.6% market share, driven by markets like India and China, achieving an 80% increase compared to 51% in Europe and 39% in North America.
Latin America saw the highest growth in in-app purchases, though North America retained a 40% revenue share.
ChatGPT dominated in-app revenue globally, except in China, where DeepSeek led downloads shortly after its launch.
Users engaged with ChatGPT for an average of 12.1 days per month, matching the usage frequency of platforms like X and Reddit, with only Google surpassing it.
The report noted increased weekend usage, suggesting reliance beyond work-related tasks.
“ChatGPT’s usage patterns are increasingly similar to Google’s, serving as a primary tool for consumers both during and outside work hours,” the report stated.
In H1 2025, ChatGPT averaged 16 minutes of daily usage, nearing the 18.2 minutes for top search engines and browsers. Over a third of Q2 2025 prompts were lifestyle and entertainment-related, spanning health, shopping, finance, and meal planning.
More than 15% of US ChatGPT users access it across web and mobile, outpacing platforms like Temu and Threads but trailing Google, Facebook, and Amazon.
Other popular apps included Character AI, PolyBuzz, DeepSeek, and Perplexity.
The term “AI” appeared over 100,000 times in app store descriptions, with AI-related apps downloaded 7.5 billion times in H1 2025, comprising 10% of total downloads.
Categories like AI assistants, content generation, photo editing, and education saw increased AI branding, though Sensor Tower noted that adding “AI” to app names often yields only short-term download boosts.