AI Apps Break Revenue Records (And It's Not Just ChatGPT)

It feels like everything interesting in the app world is centered around AI right now it's because that's not wrong. AI companies are in a race for brand recognition and in the process we, the users, are winning. Very much like where streaming apps were back in 2020.

AI app revenue has been growing steadily for quite a while now, led mostly by ChatGPT, but this October, the "Big 5" AI apps reached a new all-time high, and it's not ChatGPT's fault.

The "Big 5" AI apps include ChatGPT, Grok, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity. They represent where most users go when they think of AI right now and they have the revenue to show for it.

In October, the group's net revenue peaked at $206M, according to Appfigures Intelligence, and that's all after store fees. That's the most the group has ever earned. The previous peak was back in June with $193M in net revenue.

Individually, all five are currently earning at an all-time high, too.

Our estimates show ChatGPT leads the pack with $187M of net revenue in October.

Grok follows with $8.7M of net revenue, according to our estimates. Grok has been the fastest growing AI app in terms of revenue. October marks a 50% increase from September.

Claude comes in third with $5M of net revenue, Perplexity with $3.1M, and Gemini with $1.7M, according to our App Intelligence. One thing to note is that the revenue we're tracking for Gemini is only coming from the App Store. On Google Play the app doesn't use in-app purchases.

Although ChatGPT is by far the biggest, its revenue trend tells an important story. Revenue growth has slowed down and for most of the summer, went negative as its competitors grew. To me this means LLMs are mutually exclusive to many.

I mentioned streaming because I see a very similar pattern, and if that is the case, it means what we're getting now isn't sustainable. Who do you think will win the race?