State of AI Apps Report 2025: Why Apps Across Verticals are Becoming AI-Powered

In 2025, AI is not only for the most tech-savvy consumers. AI chatbots and assistants are becoming more accessible than ever, and users are increasingly comfortable with using AI in ways that improve the user experience across different types of apps, from photo editing to calorie counters.

Sensor Tower’s State of AI Apps Report 2025 dives deep into the ever-changing competitive landscape of AI. Discover the current state of play for Generative AI apps like ChatGPT and DeepSeek, including how their audiences have expanded and changed over time and their latest strategies to appeal to new users. And AI has spread far beyond chatbots – this report highlights how apps across categories are adapting to the opportunities – and potential threats – of AI in their space.

AI is No Longer Niche. It’s Mainstream.

The AI market is rapidly evolving, and the audience for AI Assistants has expanded dramatically in the past year. In July 2025, ChatGPT became the fastest app to reach 1 billion global downloads across iOS and Google Play, only a few months after it became the fastest app (excluding pre-installs) to reach 500 million monthly active users (MAU). This means that the audience for AI has expanded well beyond freelancers, students, and coders. 

One signal that AI use cases are expanding is ChatGPT’s increased use on weekend days. Work-focused apps like Microsoft Teams and Slack tend to see large dips in usage during the weekend on both app and web. In H1 2024, ChatGPT had a similar pattern where usage on both app and web tended to increase during the work week. By H1 2025, this trend for ChatGPT on mobile had decreased significantly. This makes its app usage trends more similar to Google, which consumers rely on as a primary resource while working and outside of work alike.

Analyzing ChatGPT prompt data in the United States reveals that AI use cases are in fact expanding far beyond work and education tasks. Users are turning to ChatGPT to help with a variety of needs, from Shopping to Cooking & Meal Prep to Trivia & Pop Culture. Nine of the top 10 categories by growth in prompt share between Q2 2024 and Q2 2025 were Lifestyle & Entertainment categories, with Health & Wellness leading the way. This reflects how ChatGPT has not only reached a much broader user base, but how consumers are becoming increasingly comfortable using the tool for more varied use cases.

On the other side, categories that have lost the most prompt share include Coding Help, Language Learning & Translation, and Writing & Editing. These are still some of the top use cases for ChatGPT, but have lost prompt share as users find creative new ways to get information from ChatGPT.

Apps Across Categories Can No Longer Get Away With Ignoring AI

From 2015-2019, AI was mostly used in mobile games rather than apps. This all changed following the release of ChatGPT as the number of apps mentioning AI-related terms like "AI", "machine learning", or "LLM" surged in 2023.

Software is the clear non-game leader (including AI Assistant and AI Content Generator apps). Health & Wellness, Jobs & Education, Lifestyle & Services, and Financial Services have all had more than 200 apps add AI terms (or release with these terms) in the first half of 2025.

Some of the top subgenres are finding themselves potentially threatened by AI apps, as apps like ChatGPT are used in new ways that could replace certain use cases. For example, AI apps are already being used as tools for Education & Training, Nutrition & Diet, and Budgeting.

Early returns on the impact of AI on these mobile subgenres have been mixed, with several actually seeing strong growth across mobile key performance indicators (KPIs). To succeed in this new environment, apps need to stay ahead of the general AI chatbots by adding AI features specifically tailored to their audiences’ needs and use cases. For example, AI-powered calorie scanners are becoming a must-have for Nutrition & Diet apps. Apps across these subgenres must add competitive AI features that can outperform those in ChatGPT or risk being replaced.

Want More Insights on the Latest in AI? Read the Full Report

Read the State of AI Apps Report 2025 covering the latest on how AI is reshaping the mobile and digital advertising spaces, spanning 24 markets in a dynamic, interactive format covering:

• Audience Insights: See how the audience for AI has changed rapidly over the past few years and understand how to support demand for new user cases

• AI Across Verticals: AI is everywhere on mobile. See how top apps are adapting, proactively adding AI features to ward off competition from AI Assistants like ChatGPT.

• App Store Optimization: Discover the latest strategies to boost organic discovery, from screenshots to keywords to custom product pages

• Advertising Trends: Digital ad spend from Generative AI brands is picking up as top players compete for new users

• Advertising Strategies: Find out how top AI Assistants are trying to reach a more casual audience