Romantic AI apps hit $427.3M in mobile spending | 69% of regular users withheld full use
TL;DR
Romantic AI apps drew $427.3M; 69% of regular users in a separate survey did not fully disclose their use.
Mobile spending on romantic AI companion apps has reached $427.3 million. Appfigures Intelligence counted 214 adult and romantic AI companion apps across Apple's App Store and Google Play, with 165.3 million worldwide downloads since ChatGPT launched in late 2022.
The figure is gross consumer spending before Apple and Google take platform fees, typically 30%, and is not developer net revenue. The apps recorded $162.8 million in the first half of 2026. Zeta ranked first with $33 million, Tipsy Chat followed with $15.2 million, and Emochi led downloads with 7.9 million installs.
The dataset covers the visible mobile-store market and excludes web-only services such as Joi AI, Candy AI, and SpicyChat AI. General or PG-rated AI companions recorded nearly twice as many downloads as romantic apps in the first half of 2026, while drawing $164.8 million in spending, $2 million more than the romantic category.
A separate Wheatley Institute study surveyed 2,431 partnered US adults ages 18 to 30. Fifteen percent regularly used romantic AI companions, and another 20% to 30% had tried one. Among regular users, 69% had not disclosed the full extent of their use to their partner. The authors said the cross-sectional data cannot establish the causal direction between AI use and relationship stability.
via Decrypt / Wheatley Institute
The figure is gross consumer spending before Apple and Google take platform fees, typically 30%, and is not developer net revenue. The apps recorded $162.8 million in the first half of 2026. Zeta ranked first with $33 million, Tipsy Chat followed with $15.2 million, and Emochi led downloads with 7.9 million installs.
The dataset covers the visible mobile-store market and excludes web-only services such as Joi AI, Candy AI, and SpicyChat AI. General or PG-rated AI companions recorded nearly twice as many downloads as romantic apps in the first half of 2026, while drawing $164.8 million in spending, $2 million more than the romantic category.
A separate Wheatley Institute study surveyed 2,431 partnered US adults ages 18 to 30. Fifteen percent regularly used romantic AI companions, and another 20% to 30% had tried one. Among regular users, 69% had not disclosed the full extent of their use to their partner. The authors said the cross-sectional data cannot establish the causal direction between AI use and relationship stability.
via Decrypt / Wheatley Institute
