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AI companion apps on track to pull in 0M in 2025 | TechCrunch

AI companion apps on track to pull in $120M in 2025 | TechCrunch

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Demand for AI “companion” applications outside of bigger names, like ChatGPT and Grok, is growing. Of the 337 active and revenue-generating AI companion apps available worldwide, 128 were released in 2025 so far, according to new data provided to TechCrunch by app intelligence firm Appfigures. This subsection of the AI market on mobile has now generated $82 million during the first half of the year and is on track to pull in over $120 million by year-end, the firm’s analysis indicates.

Unlike general-purpose chatbots, AI companion apps anthropomorphize AI interactions by allowing users to converse with custom characters, including friends, lovers, girlfriends or boyfriends, fantasy characters, and more. Appfigures defined the market segment in the same way, describing companion apps as those in which the user can interact with either premade or user-generated synthetic characters meant to embody an actual personality.

Popular apps in this space include Replika, Character.AI, PolyBuzz, Chai, and others.

As of July 2025, AI companion apps across the Apple App Store and Google Play have been downloaded 220 million times globally. During the first half of 2025, downloads were up 88% year-over-year, reaching 60 million.

Appfigures crunched the numbers and found that, as of July 2025, AI companion apps have driven $221 million in consumer spending worldwide. So far this year, these apps have generated 64% more revenue than during the same period in 2024.

The top 10% of all AI companion apps generate 89% of the revenue in the category, the data shows. In addition, around 10% (or 33) of the apps have exceeded $1 million in lifetime consumer spending.

Revenue per download is also up $0.66 from $0.52 in 2024 to $1.18 for the category so far in 2025.

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While dedicated AI companion apps are fairly popular, bigger companies like xAI are also moving into the market. In July, xAI’s Grok launched AI companions, including an anime girl and guy, as well as a snarky 3D fox.

Meanwhile, ChatGPT’s recent upgrade to GPT-5 brought to light the fact that many of its users felt a kinship with the older model, as they mourned the loss of their AI companion, whom they had come to depend upon.

To address these and other concerns about GPT-5’s performance, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman brought back the 4o model for the time being.

Google last year tapped into the market, too, when it hired away Character.ai’s founder, Noam Shazeer. The Character.ai app lives on and still has tens of millions of monthly active users.

According to Appfigures’ data, the most popular AI companion apps are those used by people looking for an AI girlfriend. Of the active apps on the market today, 17% have an app name that includes the word “girlfriend,” compared with 4% that say “boyfriend” or “fantasy.” Terms like anime, soulmate, and lover, among others, are less frequently mentioned.

AppfiguresImage Credits:Appfigures

The firm notes there were likely a number of other AI companion apps that launched on the app stores since 2022, but were later removed after failing to gain traction in terms of revenue or downloads. Those weren’t factored into its analysis, however.

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The downside of KeePassXC is that it doesn’t have official mobile clients. However, third-party apps are available for iOS and Android. KeePassXC is a fork of KeePass that offers better cross-platform support, but there are a handful of other forks available, as well.

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Google Password Manager (Free): Google has offered a password manager within Chrome for years, but it recently broadened with a dedicated Android app. Although storing passwords in your browser has a few security concerns, Google offers top-notch encryption, the option to turn on on-device encryption, and integration with biometric authentication on Android and Windows. It can even store passkeys. For most people, I recommend a third-party password manager, but if you aren’t using a password manager at all, Google Password Manager is a good option.

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Pass (Free): Pass is a command-line wrapper around GPG (GNU Privacy Guard), which means it is only for the nerdiest users. It supports managing encrypted .gpg files in Git, and third-party mobile apps are available. It’s not for everyone. For years, this was my password manager of choice, but eventually, Bitwarden’s ease of use won me over.

Password Managers to Avoid

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RoboForm ($30 Per Year, $48 Per Year for a Five-User Family Plan): RoboForm has most of the same features as the rest on this list, but it lacks some of the things that differentiate our top picks, like Bitwarden’s open source aspect and 1Password’s travel features. I’ve been testing the free plan for a while and haven’t run into any problems. There are apps for every common platform, and it’s easy to use. RoboForm recently completed an independent security audit and came out looking good.

Pass (Free): Pass is a command-line wrapper around GPG (GNU Privacy Guard), which means it is only for the nerdiest users. It supports managing encrypted .gpg files in Git, and third-party mobile apps are available. It’s not for everyone. For years, this was my password manager of choice, but eventually, Bitwarden’s ease of use won me over.

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ExpressKeys by ExpressVPN: ExpressKeys is from ExpressVPN (formerly Keys by ExpressVPN that I tested, but it’s the same product), which ranks among the best VPN services on the market. But ExpressKeys doesn’t live up to the same standard. It’s secure, but I struggled to get it to work with any consistency. The browser extension requires the desktop ExpressVPN app to work, and closing either will force you to sign back in all over again. Worse, ExpressKeys wouldn’t recognize that I was signed into my ExpressVPN account about half the time. It needs some serious fixes before I can recommend it. —Jacob Roach

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Download the desktop app for Windows, macOS, or Linux and create your vault. There are also extensions for Firefox, Edge, and Chrome. The project does not offer apps for phones. Instead, it recommends KeePass2Android or Strongbox for iPhone.

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ExpressKeys by ExpressVPN: ExpressKeys is from ExpressVPN (formerly Keys by ExpressVPN that I tested, but it’s the same product), which ranks among the best VPN services on the market. But ExpressKeys doesn’t live up to the same standard. It’s secure, but I struggled to get it to work with any consistency. The browser extension requires the desktop ExpressVPN app to work, and closing either will force you to sign back in all over again. Worse, ExpressKeys wouldn’t recognize that I was signed into my ExpressVPN account about half the time. It needs some serious fixes before I can recommend it. —Jacob Roach

#Password #Managers #Browserbuying guides,passwords,vulnerabilities,security,software,encryption

Snapchat is officially joining the race to clean AI slop out of social media.

The company announced July 31 that wholly AI-generated videos will no longer be eligible for recommendation in Spotlight, Snapchat’s discovery feed for trending videos from creators across the platform in order to “reward authentic creativity.”

The policy does not prevent users from posting AI-generated videos elsewhere on Snapchat. It also does not disqualify every video that involves AI. Creators can continue using Snapchat’s AI tools to edit or enhance their original footage, and those videos will remain eligible for Spotlight recommendations with transparency indicators.

SEE ALSO: New safety rules for under-16 Snapchat users

The line Snapchat is drawing comes down to who, or what, created the underlying video. AI can help a person make something. It cannot make the entire thing and still expect Snapchat’s recommendation system to distribute it.

“As low-quality, repetitive, AI-generated content becomes increasingly common across the internet, we want Spotlight to remain a place where people can discover authentic creativity from real people,” the company wrote in a blog post.

Keeping entirely generated videos out of Spotlight matters on the platform because recommendation is what allow a creator’s work to reach people who do not already follow them. Removing that distribution makes Spotlight far less valuable as a growth channel for automated content farms that can produce synthetic videos at scale.

It also protects a part of Snapchat that has been attracting more creators. Snap said the number of unique people contributing to Spotlight globally has increased by more than 120 percent over the past year.

Exactly how Snapchat will identify wholly AI-generated videos is less clear. The company has not explained what level of human involvement would make a video eligible or how it will distinguish an AI-enhanced recording from a generated video that received a few human edits.

Snap acknowledged that challenge in its announcement, saying that “no detection system is perfect.”

Social platforms are reconsidering AI slop

Snapchat isn’t the first platform to decide that the flood of repetitive AI content is becoming a problem for its users.

LinkedIn began expanding tools in July that allow members to report posts and comments that “seem like AI slop.” The company is also introducing classifiers intended to reduce low-quality AI content in recommendations and replacing its “enhance your post” writing feature with a more limited proofreading tool.

LinkedIn Chief Product Officer Hari Srinivasan emphasized that the company does not consider all AI-assisted work to be slop. The concern is content that feels automated, generic, or disconnected from the person publishing it.

Substack has taken a transparency-focused approach. On July 21, the newsletter platform introduced an optional AI-detection feature built with Pangram. Readers can scan posts, notes, replies, and comments longer than 100 words to receive an estimate of how much of the text was written by a person or with AI assistance.

YouTube’s current policies similarly make repetitive or mass-produced “inauthentic content” ineligible for monetization. Its spam rules also prohibit creators from using automated or synthetic tools to flood the platform with large volumes of nearly identical videos.

TikTok has also put more of the decision in viewers’ hands. The platform began testing a setting in November that lets users increase or decrease the amount of AI-generated content that appears in their For You feeds.

Snapchat’s decision also arrives as Meta imagines a very different future for social media.

In its latest earnings remarks on July 29, Meta said its Muse image and video models would create a “nearly infinite universe of personalized content” across its platforms. That AI-generated material would become another source of recommendations alongside posts from friends and established creators.

Snapchat is making a different bet for Spotlight. As synthetic video becomes easier to produce and harder to distinguish from recorded footage, the platform is reserving its most valuable discovery space for content that begins with a person.

Drawing that line may be easier than enforcing it. Still, Snapchat has made its preference clear: AI can stay behind the scenes. Spotlight belongs to the humans.

Topics Artificial Intelligence Snapchat

#Snapchat #bans #fully #AIgenerated #videos #Spotlight #recommendations">Snapchat bans fully AI-generated videos from Spotlight recommendations Snapchat is officially joining the race to clean AI slop out of social media.The company announced July 31 that wholly AI-generated videos will no longer be eligible for recommendation in Spotlight, Snapchat’s discovery feed for trending videos from creators across the platform in order to “reward authentic creativity.”The policy does not prevent users from posting AI-generated videos elsewhere on Snapchat. It also does not disqualify every video that involves AI. Creators can continue using Snapchat’s AI tools to edit or enhance their original footage, and those videos will remain eligible for Spotlight recommendations with transparency indicators. SEE ALSO: New safety rules for under-16 Snapchat users The line Snapchat is drawing comes down to who, or what, created the underlying video. AI can help a person make something. It cannot make the entire thing and still expect Snapchat’s recommendation system to distribute it.“As low-quality, repetitive, AI-generated content becomes increasingly common across the internet, we want Spotlight to remain a place where people can discover authentic creativity from real people,” the company wrote in a blog post.Keeping entirely generated videos out of Spotlight matters on the platform because recommendation is what allow a creator’s work to reach people who do not already follow them. Removing that distribution makes Spotlight far less valuable as a growth channel for automated content farms that can produce synthetic videos at scale.It also protects a part of Snapchat that has been attracting more creators. Snap said the number of unique people contributing to Spotlight globally has increased by more than 120 percent over the past year.Exactly how Snapchat will identify wholly AI-generated videos is less clear. The company has not explained what level of human involvement would make a video eligible or how it will distinguish an AI-enhanced recording from a generated video that received a few human edits. Mashable Trend Report Snap acknowledged that challenge in its announcement, saying that “no detection system is perfect.”Social platforms are reconsidering AI slopSnapchat isn’t the first platform to decide that the flood of repetitive AI content is becoming a problem for its users.LinkedIn began expanding tools in July that allow members to report posts and comments that “seem like AI slop.” The company is also introducing classifiers intended to reduce low-quality AI content in recommendations and replacing its “enhance your post” writing feature with a more limited proofreading tool.LinkedIn Chief Product Officer Hari Srinivasan emphasized that the company does not consider all AI-assisted work to be slop. The concern is content that feels automated, generic, or disconnected from the person publishing it.Substack has taken a transparency-focused approach. On July 21, the newsletter platform introduced an optional AI-detection feature built with Pangram. Readers can scan posts, notes, replies, and comments longer than 100 words to receive an estimate of how much of the text was written by a person or with AI assistance. YouTube’s current policies similarly make repetitive or mass-produced “inauthentic content” ineligible for monetization. Its spam rules also prohibit creators from using automated or synthetic tools to flood the platform with large volumes of nearly identical videos.TikTok has also put more of the decision in viewers’ hands. The platform began testing a setting in November that lets users increase or decrease the amount of AI-generated content that appears in their For You feeds.Snapchat’s decision also arrives as Meta imagines a very different future for social media.In its latest earnings remarks on July 29, Meta said its Muse image and video models would create a “nearly infinite universe of personalized content” across its platforms. That AI-generated material would become another source of recommendations alongside posts from friends and established creators.Snapchat is making a different bet for Spotlight. As synthetic video becomes easier to produce and harder to distinguish from recorded footage, the platform is reserving its most valuable discovery space for content that begins with a person.Drawing that line may be easier than enforcing it. Still, Snapchat has made its preference clear: AI can stay behind the scenes. Spotlight belongs to the humans. Topics Artificial Intelligence Snapchat #Snapchat #bans #fully #AIgenerated #videos #Spotlight #recommendations

AI slop out of social media.

The company announced July 31 that wholly AI-generated videos will no longer be eligible for recommendation in Spotlight, Snapchat’s discovery feed for trending videos from creators across the platform in order to “reward authentic creativity.”

The policy does not prevent users from posting AI-generated videos elsewhere on Snapchat. It also does not disqualify every video that involves AI. Creators can continue using Snapchat’s AI tools to edit or enhance their original footage, and those videos will remain eligible for Spotlight recommendations with transparency indicators.

SEE ALSO: New safety rules for under-16 Snapchat users

The line Snapchat is drawing comes down to who, or what, created the underlying video. AI can help a person make something. It cannot make the entire thing and still expect Snapchat’s recommendation system to distribute it.

“As low-quality, repetitive, AI-generated content becomes increasingly common across the internet, we want Spotlight to remain a place where people can discover authentic creativity from real people,” the company wrote in a blog post.

Keeping entirely generated videos out of Spotlight matters on the platform because recommendation is what allow a creator’s work to reach people who do not already follow them. Removing that distribution makes Spotlight far less valuable as a growth channel for automated content farms that can produce synthetic videos at scale.

It also protects a part of Snapchat that has been attracting more creators. Snap said the number of unique people contributing to Spotlight globally has increased by more than 120 percent over the past year.

Exactly how Snapchat will identify wholly AI-generated videos is less clear. The company has not explained what level of human involvement would make a video eligible or how it will distinguish an AI-enhanced recording from a generated video that received a few human edits.

Snap acknowledged that challenge in its announcement, saying that “no detection system is perfect.”

Social platforms are reconsidering AI slop

Snapchat isn’t the first platform to decide that the flood of repetitive AI content is becoming a problem for its users.

LinkedIn began expanding tools in July that allow members to report posts and comments that “seem like AI slop.” The company is also introducing classifiers intended to reduce low-quality AI content in recommendations and replacing its “enhance your post” writing feature with a more limited proofreading tool.

LinkedIn Chief Product Officer Hari Srinivasan emphasized that the company does not consider all AI-assisted work to be slop. The concern is content that feels automated, generic, or disconnected from the person publishing it.

Substack has taken a transparency-focused approach. On July 21, the newsletter platform introduced an optional AI-detection feature built with Pangram. Readers can scan posts, notes, replies, and comments longer than 100 words to receive an estimate of how much of the text was written by a person or with AI assistance.

YouTube’s current policies similarly make repetitive or mass-produced “inauthentic content” ineligible for monetization. Its spam rules also prohibit creators from using automated or synthetic tools to flood the platform with large volumes of nearly identical videos.

TikTok has also put more of the decision in viewers’ hands. The platform began testing a setting in November that lets users increase or decrease the amount of AI-generated content that appears in their For You feeds.

Snapchat’s decision also arrives as Meta imagines a very different future for social media.

In its latest earnings remarks on July 29, Meta said its Muse image and video models would create a “nearly infinite universe of personalized content” across its platforms. That AI-generated material would become another source of recommendations alongside posts from friends and established creators.

Snapchat is making a different bet for Spotlight. As synthetic video becomes easier to produce and harder to distinguish from recorded footage, the platform is reserving its most valuable discovery space for content that begins with a person.

Drawing that line may be easier than enforcing it. Still, Snapchat has made its preference clear: AI can stay behind the scenes. Spotlight belongs to the humans.

Topics Artificial Intelligence Snapchat

#Snapchat #bans #fully #AIgenerated #videos #Spotlight #recommendations">Snapchat bans fully AI-generated videos from Spotlight recommendations

Snapchat is officially joining the race to clean AI slop out of social media.

The company announced July 31 that wholly AI-generated videos will no longer be eligible for recommendation in Spotlight, Snapchat’s discovery feed for trending videos from creators across the platform in order to “reward authentic creativity.”

The policy does not prevent users from posting AI-generated videos elsewhere on Snapchat. It also does not disqualify every video that involves AI. Creators can continue using Snapchat’s AI tools to edit or enhance their original footage, and those videos will remain eligible for Spotlight recommendations with transparency indicators.

SEE ALSO: New safety rules for under-16 Snapchat users

The line Snapchat is drawing comes down to who, or what, created the underlying video. AI can help a person make something. It cannot make the entire thing and still expect Snapchat’s recommendation system to distribute it.

“As low-quality, repetitive, AI-generated content becomes increasingly common across the internet, we want Spotlight to remain a place where people can discover authentic creativity from real people,” the company wrote in a blog post.

Keeping entirely generated videos out of Spotlight matters on the platform because recommendation is what allow a creator’s work to reach people who do not already follow them. Removing that distribution makes Spotlight far less valuable as a growth channel for automated content farms that can produce synthetic videos at scale.

It also protects a part of Snapchat that has been attracting more creators. Snap said the number of unique people contributing to Spotlight globally has increased by more than 120 percent over the past year.

Exactly how Snapchat will identify wholly AI-generated videos is less clear. The company has not explained what level of human involvement would make a video eligible or how it will distinguish an AI-enhanced recording from a generated video that received a few human edits.

Snap acknowledged that challenge in its announcement, saying that “no detection system is perfect.”

Social platforms are reconsidering AI slop

Snapchat isn’t the first platform to decide that the flood of repetitive AI content is becoming a problem for its users.

LinkedIn began expanding tools in July that allow members to report posts and comments that “seem like AI slop.” The company is also introducing classifiers intended to reduce low-quality AI content in recommendations and replacing its “enhance your post” writing feature with a more limited proofreading tool.

LinkedIn Chief Product Officer Hari Srinivasan emphasized that the company does not consider all AI-assisted work to be slop. The concern is content that feels automated, generic, or disconnected from the person publishing it.

Substack has taken a transparency-focused approach. On July 21, the newsletter platform introduced an optional AI-detection feature built with Pangram. Readers can scan posts, notes, replies, and comments longer than 100 words to receive an estimate of how much of the text was written by a person or with AI assistance.

YouTube’s current policies similarly make repetitive or mass-produced “inauthentic content” ineligible for monetization. Its spam rules also prohibit creators from using automated or synthetic tools to flood the platform with large volumes of nearly identical videos.

TikTok has also put more of the decision in viewers’ hands. The platform began testing a setting in November that lets users increase or decrease the amount of AI-generated content that appears in their For You feeds.

Snapchat’s decision also arrives as Meta imagines a very different future for social media.

In its latest earnings remarks on July 29, Meta said its Muse image and video models would create a “nearly infinite universe of personalized content” across its platforms. That AI-generated material would become another source of recommendations alongside posts from friends and established creators.

Snapchat is making a different bet for Spotlight. As synthetic video becomes easier to produce and harder to distinguish from recorded footage, the platform is reserving its most valuable discovery space for content that begins with a person.

Drawing that line may be easier than enforcing it. Still, Snapchat has made its preference clear: AI can stay behind the scenes. Spotlight belongs to the humans.

Topics Artificial Intelligence Snapchat

#Snapchat #bans #fully #AIgenerated #videos #Spotlight #recommendations

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