Mobile Apps Surpass Gaming Revenue for First Time as AI Drives Historic Spending Shift

Meanwhile, spending on games reached $81.8 billion, growing just 1% year over year. While this shift had occurred in specific markets like the United States or during certain quarters previously, 2025 marked the first time it happened on a global scale, signaling a fundamental transformation in how consumers use and value their mobile devices.

Generative AI Apps Drive Triple-Digit Growth

Generative AI applications emerged as the primary catalyst behind the spending shift. In-app purchase revenue in the AI category more than tripled in 2025, surpassing $5 billion, while downloads doubled to 3.8 billion globally. All ten of the most downloaded apps in the category were AI assistants, led by ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and DeepSeek.

ChatGPT alone generated $3.4 billion in global in-app purchase revenue, making it the third highest grossing app of 2025 behind only TikTok and Google One. This represents extraordinary growth for a product that only became widely available to consumers in late 2022. Users spent 48 billion hours in generative AI apps last year, 3.6 times the total time spent in 2024 and ten times 2023 levels.

The session volume, measuring the number of times users opened and actively used AI apps, exceeded one trillion in 2025, growing faster than downloads. This pattern suggests existing users were deepening their engagement more rapidly than apps were acquiring new ones, indicating that AI tools are becoming embedded in daily workflows rather than serving as novelty experiences.

Mobile Becomes Primary Gateway to AI Services

The report highlighted the central role mobile devices now play in connecting users to AI services. Sensor Tower estimates the total audience for AI assistants in the United States topped 200 million by year end, with more than half, 110 million, accessing these tools exclusively on mobile devices. In 2024, only about 13 million users were mobile only.

This dramatic shift underscores how smartphones have evolved from primarily entertainment devices into productivity and creativity tools. The convenience of having AI capabilities available anywhere, at any time, has driven adoption far beyond what desktop or web-based interfaces achieved alone.

Among top AI publishers, OpenAI and DeepSeek together accounted for nearly 50% of global downloads, up from 21% in 2024, while big tech publishers expanded their share from 14% to nearly 30%. This consolidation around a few major players mirrors patterns seen in other technology sectors, though the market remains more competitive than many observers expected.

Broader App Economy Trends

Beyond AI, categories including social media, video streaming, and productivity apps contributed to non-game revenue growth. Consumers spent an average of 90 minutes daily on social media apps, totaling nearly 2.5 trillion hours, a 5% increase year over year. Total time spent across all mobile apps reached 5.3 trillion hours in 2025.

Short form drama and AI apps stood out as outliers in download growth, posting increases of 278% and 148% respectively. Despite the spending shift, Sensor Tower noted games remain a major part of both time spent and revenue, though they now compete with an expanding array of utility focused applications.

Oliver Yeh, Chief Executive Officer and co-founder of Sensor Tower, commented on the shift. Over the past few years we have observed increasing revenue growth for apps outside the gaming category, as Entertainment, Lifestyle, and Productivity Services have launched new ways to offer consumers premium experiences. This has primed the market for generative AI apps, which not only saw mass adoption, but also experienced significant revenue growth.

Implications for the Mobile Ecosystem

The revenue crossover represents more than just a statistical milestone. It reflects a fundamental change in how consumers perceive value in mobile applications. For years, games dominated in-app purchases because they offered compelling entertainment and employed sophisticated monetization strategies. The fact that productivity and creativity tools can now command similar spending levels suggests consumers are willing to pay for applications that enhance their capabilities rather than simply entertaining them.

This shift also has significant implications for app developers, platform operators, and investors. Gaming studios that once dominated app store revenue charts now face competition from AI companies and productivity software makers. Apple and Google, which take a percentage of in-app purchases, are seeing their revenue streams diversify beyond gaming. Venture capital that once flowed primarily to mobile gaming startups is increasingly targeting AI-powered productivity applications.

The data suggests we are witnessing the maturation of the smartphone from a gaming and social media device into a genuine productivity platform, powered by AI capabilities that were unimaginable just a few years ago. As these tools continue to improve and integrate more deeply into professional and personal workflows, the spending gap between games and productivity apps is likely to widen further.