AI is fueling an App Store gold rush nobody expected

Everyone predicted AI would kill apps. The data shows the opposite is happening.

New figures from Appfigures reveal something surprising: app launches are exploding, not contracting. Worldwide app releases in Q1 2026 jumped 60% year-over-year across the App Store and Google Play. On iOS alone, that number hits 80%. April 2026 is tracking even higher - up 104% across both stores compared to last year.

This was not the narrative we were sold. Industry voices have been predicting the death of apps for years. Nothing CEO Carl Pei is building smartphones for an AI-first era where apps supposedly disappear. The New York Times ran pieces on AI-powered smart glasses and ambient computing replacing smartphones entirely. OpenAI is literally working with Jony Ive on AI hardware.

The theory was simple: AI agents would handle everything through natural language, making dedicated apps obsolete. Why open a specific app when your AI assistant can just… do the thing?

But apps are not dying. They are multiplying.

There is a second theory gaining traction now, one that fits the data better. AI is not replacing apps. It is democratizing app creation. People who have ideas but lack coding skills can now build functional mobile software. The barrier to entry has dropped. The result is a flood of new apps hitting the stores weekly.

Apple SVP Greg “Joz” Joswiak put it bluntly in a recent interview: rumors of the App Store’s death “may have been greatly exaggerated.”

The AI app market itself is massive now. Appfigures’ research shows AI apps hit 115 million monthly downloads by December 2025, up from just 6 million in January 2023. Consumer spending on AI apps topped $1.4 billion in 2024. Projections for 2025: over $2 billion.

General assistant apps - the so-called “thin wrappers” around large language models - account for 40% of that spending. ChatGPT alone grew its mobile revenue 75x since launch and now captures 44% of global AI app spending.

What we are seeing is not replacement but expansion. AI is creating new categories of apps, new use cases, and new creators. The App Store is not the victim of the AI revolution. It might be one of its biggest beneficiaries.

Sources:

• TechCrunch: The App Store is booming again, and AI may be why (https://techcrunch.com/2026/04/18/the-app-store-is-booming-again-and-ai-may-be-why/)
• Appfigures: Rise of AI Apps Report 2025 (https://land.appfigures.com/rise-of-ai-apps-report-2025)