AI Apps Saw Over $1 Billion In Consumer Spending In 2024 12
Consumer spending on apps is projected to reach $150 billion globally in 2024, up 13% from the prior year. According to Sensor Tower's annual "State of Mobile" report, it's being fueled by a 200% surge in spending on generative AI apps like ChatGPT and Gemini, which collectively drew $1.1 billion. TechCrunch reports: If this rate of growth is sustained, this category of apps could move into the top 10 by consumer spending within a year, the firm notes. Though the release of new AI models, like OpenAI's GPT-4o last summer, helped drive app revenue up to record numbers at times, consumer demand for AI apps was consistent throughout the year -- not only during these peak surges. As a result, consumers spent nearly 7.7 billion hours using AI apps in 2024, while apps mentioning "AI" were also downloaded 17 billion times in the year.
ChatGPT alone reached 50 million monthly active users -- faster than Temu, Disney+, or YouTube Music, for comparison. This indicates there's still a growing appetite for AI apps and those with AI features.
ChatGPT alone reached 50 million monthly active users -- faster than Temu, Disney+, or YouTube Music, for comparison. This indicates there's still a growing appetite for AI apps and those with AI features.
in 2024 (Score:2)
"Consumer spending on apps is projected to reach $150 billion globally in 2024,"
That was last year. Its easier to make predictions about the past.
Re: (Score:2)
The 150B number of all apps is there to confuse the reader and somehow justify the absurd predictions of some huge future income for the "AI".
But the sad truth is that most of the "AI apps" are just the old, non-"AI" ones on which a useless "AI" label has been bolted without any need.
None of the reported 1B in "revenues" is actually due to some "AI" functionality enhancements that people can't live without.
The Numbers? (Score:1)
Re:The Numbers? (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh i dunno... if you count 'spending' on any app that has had AI screwed into it the last year, it might make sense.
Not that the AI necessarily had any bearing on the spending.
For a somewhat-unrelated example... I have a paid account at github. I could not care less about the AI features they've added, but I'm still paying for it. Since I have some access to the AI features (whether i use them or not), now they can 'account' for some of my spending ON those AI features...
Perhaps that's whats going on here... every widget and whatnot that people were using has had AI crammed into it... if they continued using it, well... now they're paying for AI apps.
Re: (Score:2)
It seems that AI is starting to be baked into apps, and prices jacked up. I think it was Google that make AI not a separate SKU, but built into Workspace now. So, because it is a part of the base product, AI is definitely selling. /s
Re: (Score:2)
Reminds me of when LEDs first become common they stuck LED clocks on everything. Then in the internet boom of the 90s every business felt the need to have a website, even the gas station down the street.
Re: (Score:2)
The numbers say generative AI stuff is about 0.7% and that is certainly not "fueling" anything. The whole story seems to be a lie. Well, the LLM scammers have been lying all along. What are a bit more false claims.
Exaggeration (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3)
That was my first thought as well. This is apparently a cheer-leading piece written by somebody that cannot do basic math.
Thanks for reminding me (Score:1)
I need to cancel my Github Copilot subscription. There may have been quite a lot of spending, but most of these apps are just wrappers and front ends to established APIs.
Of those that work, most are scam-ware designed to trigger FOMO for users just so they can claim to alleged circle of friends that they are using AI assistants when in fact they are having their bank accounts drained, PII assimilated, and likely exposing themselves to eventual hacks, data breaches, and malware.
Even ChatGPT, and Grok are li
Milk the cow while you can. (Score:4, Informative)
DeepSeek R1 proves that whatever OpenAI releases (in this case o1), no matter how high the cost, can be cloned within a matter of months. This isn't even the first time they've done it, they released v3 last month. And this stuff runs on relative potatoes. I got the 70 billion parameter model of R1 to run on a 6 year old office PC with an i5-8500, 48 GB of RAM, and an RTX 3060. It then took a minute or two to think before responding and the response itself trickled out at about 110 baud, but it was running.
China can't be the king of AI, but it sure looks like they're poised to make sure nobody else can be king either. All the invested money simply can't be made up in the short window between deployment and being cloned.