AI companion apps are set to generate $120M in 2025 as demand for personalized AI experiences continues to grow globally.
Outside of the more prominent names, such as Grok and ChatGPT, there is an increasing demand for AI “companion” applications.
According to recent data provided to TechCrunch by app intelligence firm Appfigures, 128 of the 337 active and revenue-generating AI companion apps available worldwide were released in 2025.
The firm’s analysis suggests that this segment of the AI market on mobile has already generated $82 million during the first half of the year and is on course to generate over $120 million by the end of the year.
In contrast to general-purpose chatbots, AI companion apps anthropomorphize AI interactions by enabling users to engage in conversations with personalized characters, such as friends, lovers, girlfriends, suitors, and fantasy characters.
The market segment was defined by Appfigures in the same manner, defining companion apps as those that allow the user to interact with synthetic characters that are either pre-made or user-generated and intended to represent an actual personality.
Replika, Character.AI, PolyBuzz, Chai, and other applications are among the most popular in this field.
Globally, AI companion apps have been downloaded 220 million times on the Apple App Store and Google Play as of July 2025. The number of downloads increased by 88% year over year in the first half of 2025, reaching 60 million.
According to Appfigures, AI companion apps have generated $221 million in consumer spending globally as of July 2025. These applications have generated 64% more revenue than during the same period in 2024 thus far this year.
The data indicates that the top 10% of all AI companion apps generate 89% of the category’s revenue. Furthermore, approximately 10% of the applications (33) totaled $1 million in lifetime consumer expenditure.
Additionally, the category’s revenue per download has increased by $0.66, from $0.52 in 2024 to $1.18 thus far in 2025.
While dedicated AI companion apps are popular, bigger companies like xAI are also expanding. In July, Grok, an AI companion from xAI, introduced a snarky 3D fox and an anime girl and man.
In the interim, ChatGPT’s recent upgrade to GPT-5 revealed that many of its users experienced a sense of affinity for the older model, as they lamented the loss of their AI companion, upon whom they had become reliant.
To address these and other concerns about GPT-5’s efficacy, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman returned the 4o model for now.
Last year, Google delved into the market when it hired away Character.ai’s founder, Noam Shazeer. The Character.ai application continues to exist and boasts millions of monthly active users.
According to Appfigures’ data, the most popular AI companion apps are those used by people searching for an AI girlfriend. In comparison to 4% that use the terms “boyfriend” or “fantasy,” 17% of the current active apps on the market have a name that contains the word “girlfriend.”
Among others, terms such as anime, companion, and lover are less frequently used.
The company acknowledges that numerous additional AI companion apps were likely released on the app stores since 2022, but were subsequently removed due to their inability to generate revenue or downloads. Nevertheless, those were not taken into account in the analysis.
