For the first time ever, global consumer spending on non-game mobile applications outstripped that on mobile games in 2025. This significant milestone, highlighted in market intelligence firm Sensor Tower's annual "State of Mobile 2026" report, signals a major shift in the mobile economy. While this trend had been observed in specific markets, such as the U.S., and during certain quarters, 2025 marked its global debut.
Worldwide, consumers spent approximately $85 billion on non-game apps last year. This figure represents a robust 21% year-over-year increase and is nearly 2.8 times the amount spent just five years prior.
Generative AI Fuels Unprecedented Growth
Generative AI emerged as the primary catalyst for this revenue surge. In-app purchase revenue within the generative AI category more than tripled in 2025, exceeding $5 billion. Downloads of AI applications also saw remarkable growth, doubling year-over-year to reach 3.8 billion.
The popularity of AI assistants was a significant driver, with all of the top 10 apps by downloads falling into this category. OpenAI's ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and DeepSeek led the charge. Notably, ChatGPT alone generated an impressive $3.4 billion in global in-app purchase (IAP) revenue, a figure previously reported late last year.
Engagement with generative AI apps also soared. In 2025, consumers collectively spent 48 billion hours in these applications, a 3.6-fold increase from 2024 and a tenfold jump from 2023 levels. Session volume, which measures how often users opened and interacted with an app, topped one trillion in 2025. This rapid growth in session volume, outpacing new downloads, suggests that existing users are deepening their engagement with AI apps at an accelerated rate.
Big Tech Investment and Evolving Capabilities
Another key factor driving AI app revenue and adoption is the substantial investment by major tech companies. Giants like Google, Microsoft, and X have been heavily developing their AI assistants to compete with ChatGPT. Over the past year, these companies rapidly rolled out new capabilities, enhancing areas such as coding assistance, content generation, reasoning, task execution, and accuracy. The report specifically highlighted advancements in image and video generation, citing ChatGPT's GPT-4o image generation model (released in March) and Google's Nano Banana.
The competitive landscape for AI publishers also shifted considerably. OpenAI and DeepSeek together accounted for nearly 50% of global AI app downloads, a significant leap from their 21% share in 2024. Concurrently, big tech publishers expanded their market share from 14% to almost 30%, effectively crowding out earlier ChatGPT competitors like Nova, Codeway, and Chat Smith.
Mobile as the Gateway to AI
The report underscored the critical role mobile devices play in connecting users to generative AI services. Sensor Tower estimates that the total audience for AI assistants in the U.S. surpassed 200 million by year-end 2025. More than half of these users (110 million) accessed AI assistants exclusively on mobile devices, a dramatic increase from only 13 million mobile-only users in 2024.
Beyond AI assistants, other popular AI apps contributing to this trend included the AI music generation app Suno, ByteDance's text-to-video app Jimeng AI, and AI companion apps such as Character.ai and PolyBuzz.
Broader App Market Contributions
While AI was the dominant revenue driver, Sensor Tower's findings indicate that other app categories also contributed to the overall growth. Social media, video streaming, and productivity apps continued to fuel consumer spending. For instance, consumers spent an average of 90 minutes per day on social media apps, accumulating nearly 2.5 trillion hours in total, a 5% increase year-over-year.
