History just happened, y'all, and you might've missed it while chatting with ChatGPT.
For the first time ever, people worldwide spent more cash on regular apps than mobile games. We’re talking a massive $85 billion on apps in 2025 (up 21% from last year). And FYI: That is nearly triple what we were spending just five years ago.
So what changed? Simple: AI apps absolutely exploded.
Here’s the tea:
AI apps alone pulled in over $5 billion last year, which is literally triple what they made in 2024.
ChatGPT is basically the king of the hill now, raking in a mind-blowing $3.4 billion in revenue. That makes it one of the top-grossing apps globally, challenging top dogs like Google One and TikTok.
Also: People downloaded AI tools 3.8 billion times and spent 48 billion hours using them. That is a 3.6x jump in time spent in just one year.
But here’s the part that’s actually wild: over half of America’s 200 million AI users are now mobile-only.
Just a year ago, only 13 million people were "mobile-only." Now? 110 million of us are doing everything on our phones. The shift is real, folks. We have officially moved from "let me check this on my laptop" to "I need my AI assistant in my pocket.
And it's not just the “Sam Altman show” anymore. Everyone is getting a piece of the pie:
Google’s Gemini and DeepSeek are right on ChatGPT’s heels.
Suno (music) and ByteDance’s Jimeng AI (video) are turning prompts into profits.
AI companion apps like Character.ai and PolyBuzz are proving that people will literally pay for a digital friend.
Meanwhile, social media is still king for time spent; people logged nearly 2.5 trillion hours scrolling in 2025, up 5% from last year.
The Takeaway: AI didn’t just arrive on your phone—it moved in, took over, and completely rewired the entire app economy. Mobile games are still huge ($81 billion is nothing to sneeze at), but for the first time ever, they’re no longer the biggest money-maker.
We’re officially living in the era of the AI-first smartphone. Now if only we could teach these apps to actually get stuff done… without the hallucinations.😌
You a details person? The full report’s waiting for you here.
