For the first time, consumer spending on non-game mobile apps has overtaken games, a watershed moment fueled by the rapid adoption of generative AI. According to Sensor Tower’s latest State of Mobile report, worldwide outlays on apps climbed to roughly $85 billion, up 21% year over year and nearly 2.8x higher than five years prior, signaling a decisive shift in how users value software on their phones.
Generative AI apps drove the surge. In-app purchase revenue in the AI category more than tripled to exceed $5 billion as downloads doubled to 3.8 billion. The behavior behind the boom is clear: users aren’t just trying these tools—they’re returning frequently and paying to unlock more capability.
AI Assistants Lead the Mobile Spending Shift
AI assistants dominated the download charts, led by OpenAI’s ChatGPT alongside Google’s Gemini and DeepSeek. ChatGPT alone generated an estimated $3.4 billion in global in-app purchases, underscoring how fast premium AI access, additional message limits, and advanced model upgrades have become mainstream mobile buys.
Engagement gains were even more dramatic than downloads. Sensor Tower tracked 48 billion hours spent in generative AI apps, 3.6x the time from the prior year, while session volume crossed the one trillion mark. Sessions grew faster than installs, a strong signal that existing users are deepening reliance on these tools for search-like queries, content creation, tutoring, and coding assistance.
Competition Reshapes the AI App Landscape
Big Tech’s push into mobile AI is accelerating. The report points to rapid product improvements in coding, content generation, reasoning, and task execution—highlighting advances such as ChatGPT’s GPT-4o image generation and Google’s Gemini Nano model work. These upgrades translate directly to mobile user value, from faster on-device responses to richer multimodal results.
Market share is consolidating around a few heavyweights. OpenAI and DeepSeek together accounted for nearly 50% of global AI app downloads, up from 21% a year earlier. Meanwhile, publishers from larger platforms expanded their share from 14% to nearly 30%, squeezing early competitors like Nova, Codeway, and Chat Smith and raising the bar for differentiation.
Mobile Becomes the Primary Gateway to AI
Mobile is now the front door to AI for hundreds of millions. Sensor Tower estimates the total U.S. audience for AI assistants surpassed 200 million, with more than half—about 110 million—using mobile exclusively. That’s a dramatic shift from a relatively small base of mobile-only users just one year prior, propelled by improved mobile UX, tighter OS integrations, and better on-device performance.
Beyond assistants, a diverse AI cohort found traction: Suno in AI music generation, ByteDance’s Jimeng AI for text-to-video, and AI companions such as Character.ai and PolyBuzz. These categories monetize through subscriptions and consumables, not unlike games, but the perceived ongoing utility is driving notably higher retention for many publishers.
Beyond AI, Social and Streaming Sustain Growth
AI wasn’t the only catalyst. Social media, video, and productivity apps also lifted overall receipts. Consumers spent about 90 minutes daily in social apps, totaling nearly 2.5 trillion hours, up 5% year over year. Premium tiers, ad-free bundles, creator subscriptions, and live events continue to diversify monetization across these categories.
The takeaway for developers is that utility and habit-forming experiences now rival entertainment for wallet share. Where games once dominated with gacha mechanics and battle passes, productivity, creativity, and social tools—especially those powered by AI—are proving users will pay for time savings, better outputs, and enhanced capabilities.
What This Means for Developers and Platforms
Subscription design, usage-based limits, and clear value messaging are becoming core to app monetization strategy beyond gaming. Successful AI apps iterate quickly, offer visible upgrades tied to real outcomes, and invest in trust—accuracy, privacy, and responsible use—areas where competitive advantages can endure even as models converge.
For platforms, the shift may prompt continued experimentation with billing options and discovery surfaces that spotlight high-utility experiences. If current momentum holds, AI-led apps will set the pace for mobile spending growth, with games remaining large but no longer the default leader.
