The amount of money spent on non-game mobile apps has surpassed that spent on gaming mobile applications in 2025. Sensor Tower reported that it was the first time the milestone had occurred globally, despite previously occurring in the U.S.
According to the firm’s annual State of Mobile report, money spent on apps last year reached approximately $85 billion. The amount represents a 21% increase from what consumers spent in 2024. Consumers also spent nearly 2.8x as much on mobile apps as they did just five years ago.
Generative AI drives more consumer spending in non-game mobile apps
The report revealed that the surge in consumer spending on non-game mobile apps was driven by strong revenue growth in generative AI. The research firm also found that social media and video streaming productivity fueled the activities in non-game mobile applications.
Sensor Towers argued that last year’s generative AI trend was a defining sector that boosted revenue growth, driven by in-app purchase revenue. The report revealed that in-app purchases reached $5 billion last year. Consumers also doubled their AI app downloads from the year before to approximately 3.8 billion in 2025.
The mobile research firm attributed generative AI’s growth to several factors, including the popularity of AI assistants among consumers. The report revealed that the top 10 apps by downloads were AI assistants, led by OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and DeepSeek.
Source: Sensor Towers. Generative AI download trends by subgenre.OpenAI reported that consumers spent more than $3 billion on ChatGPT, with an estimated $2.48 billion spent in the mobile app in 2025 alone. The figure represents a 408% year-over-year increase from the $487 million spent the previous year.
The research also found that consumers spent 48 billion hours in generative AI apps last year. Consumers have spent nearly 3.6x as much time in 2024 as in 2024, and 10x the level seen the year before.
Consumers also topped 1 trillion in the number of times they opened and used an app. Sensor Tower revealed that consumer session volume in AI apps was growing faster than app downloads. The research firm argued that existing users were getting more involved in AI apps than the apps were adding new users.
Big tech companies, including Google, Microsoft, and X, also drove AI app revenue and adoption higher last year. The report revealed that such tech firms have been pouring more investments into their AI assistance to challenge ChatGPT.
Big tech firms have been rapidly developing new capabilities for their AI assistants. The initiative aims to advance AI assistants in areas such as coding assistance, content generation, accuracy, reasoning, and task execution. Sensor Tower specifically pointed to improvements in image and video generation initiatives, including Google’s Nano Banana and ChatGPT’s GPT-4o image generation model.
OpenAI and DeepSeek lead in global downloads
The report also revealed that OpenAI and DeepSeek led in global downloads, accounting for around 50% of all downloads in 2025. Both AI firms saw a 21% increase in global downloads compared to 2024.
The top AI publishers also saw their market share surge last year, from 14% to nearly 30%. The growth surpassed earlier ChatGPT competitors like Nova, Codeway, and Chat Smith.
Sensor Towers also found that mobile apps played a greater role in connecting users to generative AI services. According to the report, AI assistants saw more than 200 million users in the U.S. last year.
The report also revealed that 110 million users accessed AI assistants exclusively on mobile devices. The audience grew from only 13 million mobile-only users in 2024. Sensor Towers acknowledged that mobile is increasingly interconnected, but country-specific tariffs and regulations make deep market knowledge critical.
The research firm also reported that games are currently competing with social and AI apps for time spent. The report revealed that capturing user attention is the fastest way to monetization, retention, and long-term growth.
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Source: https://www.cryptopolitan.com/global-mobile-spending-shift-in-favor-ai/
