Generative AI is fast emerging as a âone-stop solutionâ for everyday needs, and smartphone users in India are increasingly turning to AI-powered apps to make daily tasks easier. As a result, downloads of generative AI apps are rising at a rapid pace.
This trend has been highlighted in Sensor Towerâs 'State of Mobile 2026 Report', which says generative AI apps became the fastest-growing app category in terms of downloads last year. According to the report, generative AI app downloads in India jumped threefold in 2025, reaching 60 crore downloads, up from 19 crore in 2024.
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AI assistant apps drive surge in downloads
The report notes that the growing use of AI assistant apps played a major role in this rise. As more users turned to AI for help with work, study and everyday tasks, downloads of generative AI apps surged.
Data from the survey shows that ChatGPT was the most downloaded AI app in India in 2025. Other AI assistant apps such as Google Gemini, Perplexity and Grok also saw a sharp increase in downloads compared to the previous year. Overall, ChatGPT ranked second among the most downloaded apps in the country in 2025.
Market experts believe app developers adopted several strategies to make AI services more popular among the general public. One of the key moves was offering premium features either for free or at discounted prices. This helped attract a large number of new users. At the same time, users found that generative AI allowed them to complete tasks faster and more efficiently.
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The report also highlights that overall app downloads in India continued to grow. In 2025, a total of 2.55 thousand crore apps were downloaded across the country, compared to 2.46 thousand crore downloads in 2024.
Apart from AI assistant apps, the survey points out that downloads of microdrama platform apps also increased significantly in India last year, indicating changing content consumption habits among users.
