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AI companion apps were projected to generate more than $120 million in mobile consumer spending during 2025, according to Appfigures data reported by TechCrunch. The estimate followed $82 million in spending during the first half of the year.
That is meaningful demand, but it is not a measure of the entire AI-companion economy, publisher profit or confirmed full-year revenue. The figures cover a narrowly defined group of Apple App Store and Google Play apps, and most of the money is concentrated in a small number of winners.
What the $120 million estimate actually measures
App-intelligence firm Appfigures counted 337 active, revenue-generating AI companion apps worldwide. Of those, 128 launched during the first half of 2025. The category produced $82 million in consumer spending in that period and was projected in August 2025 to exceed $120 million for the full year.
| Measure | Reported figure | How to read it |
|---|---|---|
| Active revenue-generating apps | 337 | Apps in Appfigures’ active sample, not every app ever launched |
| Apps launched in H1 2025 | 128 | Part of the 337-app group |
| Consumer spending, H1 2025 | $82 million | Mobile-category spending reported by Appfigures |
| Projected 2025 spending | More than $120 million | Forecast made in August 2025, not a verified year-end result |
| Downloads by July 2025 | 220 million | Global Apple App Store and Google Play downloads |
| H1 2025 downloads | 60 million | Up 88% year over year |
| Revenue per download | $1.18 in 2025 | Compared with $0.52 in 2024 |
Appfigures and the TechCrunch report use “revenue” and “consumer spending” somewhat interchangeably. The published material does not establish whether the dollar figures are gross payments before Apple and Google commissions, publisher receipts after commissions, or net profit after infrastructure and operating costs. It also does not provide a complete split between subscriptions and in-app purchases.
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The sample excludes some apps that launched and were later removed after failing to gain traction. Downloads are installations, not unique people, active users or subscribers. The same person can install several apps, reinstall one, or never pay.
What counts as an AI companion app?
In this segment, users converse with premade or user-created synthetic characters designed to have a personality. The group includes AI friends, romantic “girlfriend” and “boyfriend” products, anime and fantasy characters, roleplay bots and social character platforms.
That definition does not automatically include general assistants such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude or Grok. A general assistant belongs in this comparison only when the analysis is specifically about its companion-like features or its entry into the character market. Clinical, wellness and therapy products should likewise be kept separate unless a source explicitly includes them.
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Why the category is growing
More products are entering the stores
Nearly 38% of the active apps in the Appfigures count launched in the first half of 2025. That rapid supply growth gives consumers more characters, relationship styles and roleplay settings to try.
The products are built for repeat use
Unlike a one-off question-and-answer tool, a companion is designed around continuity: a named identity, remembered details, personalization and an ongoing relationship frame. Those features create more opportunities for recurring subscriptions or purchases, although the available data does not show how long users remain active or how quickly they churn.
Voice, images and avatars expand the paid surface
Companion services increasingly sell voice messages and calls, image generation, video or avatar functions, premium characters, larger message allowances and virtual currencies. These features can increase willingness to pay, while also adding inference, storage, moderation and support costs.
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Romantic positioning is especially visible. Seventeen percent of active apps had “girlfriend” in their names, compared with 4% using “boyfriend.” Those labels describe marketing position, not the demographics of users or the actual content of every conversation.
Which companies are in the segment?
The dedicated companion businesses named in the report include Replika, Character.AI, PolyBuzz and Chai. Their products differ: some emphasize one persistent personal companion, while others focus on discovering or creating a large library of characters.
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Large general-purpose AI companies are also moving toward the format. xAI introduced named companions in Grok in July 2025. OpenAI’s GPT-5 rollout prompted public discussion about users’ attachment to the earlier GPT-4o experience, and Google recruited Character.AI co-founder Noam Shazeer in 2024. Those developments increase competition, but they do not turn general-assistant revenue into part of Appfigures’ $120 million estimate.
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How these apps make money
- Monthly or annual subscriptions
- Higher message limits or “unlimited” conversations
- Relationship status and premium activities
- Better memory and personalization
- Voice messages, calls and video
- Image generation and avatars
- Premium characters and virtual currency
- Advertising in some free products
Replika’s terms describe a free tier and paid programs that can include relationship status, premium activities, selfies, image generation, voice messaging, background calls, memory and video-related features. Its terms also say prices and programs may change: Replika terms. A Replika checkout page observed in August 2026 displayed a promotional first-month price of $19.75 followed by a stated $39.50 monthly renewal, alongside weekly and annual offers. That was a checkout-specific, account-, region- and promotion-dependent price, not a standard category price: Replika checkout.
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The most important number may be the concentration: the top 10% of apps generated 89% of category revenue. Roughly 33 titles—about 10% of 337—had exceeded $1 million in lifetime consumer spending.
That means the app count greatly overstates the number of businesses with meaningful scale. A leader with a recognizable brand, extensive character library, strong retention and an established community can capture most of the spending while hundreds of smaller apps compete for the remainder. The median app’s economics are therefore likely much weaker than an average calculated from the headline total would imply.
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What the estimate leaves out
- Web and desktop subscriptions that do not pass through mobile stores
- Enterprise licensing and other business-to-business sales
- Advertising revenue not captured as mobile consumer spending
- General-purpose assistants outside the defined companion segment
- Clinical or wellness tools that Appfigures did not classify as companions
- Off-platform payments and international transactions outside the measured stores
The reported $221 million in cumulative consumer spending as of July 2025 is also different from 2025 revenue. It is a category total accumulated over time, whereas $82 million is the first-half 2025 figure and more than $120 million is the full-year projection.
Why growth does not automatically mean profit
Mobile spending must cover app-store commissions, model inference, voice and image generation, moderation, customer support, user acquisition and payment costs. The Appfigures figures do not show those expenses or publisher take-home revenue.
Companion companies also depend on distribution and infrastructure controlled by others. Apple and Google can change store rules, payment requirements or age and sexual-content policies. Model providers can change access, pricing or safety filters. A sudden policy change can alter a product’s features or economics even when demand remains strong.
Safety and durability questions
Companions handle unusually intimate conversations, which raises questions about data retention, deletion, training use and third-party access. Products also need credible safeguards for minors, sexual content and users in crisis. Research has examined emotional-manipulation concerns in relationship-oriented companion design: the 2025 academic paper. A 2026 study catalogued differences in character creation, sharing, personas, voice and video calling, creator programs and relationship framing across platforms: the 2026 ecosystem study.
These concerns do not establish that companion apps cause depression, suicide or social isolation. They do show why engagement alone is an incomplete measure of business quality. Users may also face switching costs when memories, relationship history or custom personas cannot be exported and an app changes its model, safety rules or pricing—or shuts down.
How to evaluate the category as an investor or consumer
For market analysis
- Confirm whether a number covers mobile only or mobile plus web.
- Distinguish gross consumer spending from publisher net revenue.
- Check retention, paid conversion and churn rather than relying on downloads.
- Measure concentration and infrastructure costs alongside growth.
- Assess exposure to app-store, payment-processor and model-provider policies.
- Look for age assurance, crisis handling, content controls and data deletion.
- Test whether users can export memories, personas and chat history.
For choosing an individual app
- Check whether the free tier is genuinely usable and whether “unlimited” means flat-rate or token-limited.
- Verify which voice, image, video and memory features are included.
- Compare web and app-store prices before subscribing.
- Read the privacy policy for training, sharing, retention and deletion terms.
- Check age restrictions and rules for romantic, sexual or user-generated content.
- Understand what happens to conversations and features when a subscription ends.
- Do not treat a companion as emergency, medical or licensed mental-health support.
Bottom line
Appfigures’ August 2025 projection shows real and rapidly increasing consumer demand for character-driven AI apps: $82 million in first-half spending, 60 million downloads and a forecast above $120 million for the year. But it is a mobile-category estimate, not the total AI-companion economy or a confirmed final result. With 89% of revenue concentrated in the top 10% of apps, the evidence points to a fast-growing but highly uneven niche in which durable, safe profitability remains unproven.
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