We now spend over 15 minutes a day using AI as our meal planner, personal assistant, and deeply unqualified therapist.
Driving the news: Users spent a total of 15.6 billion hours on generative AI apps in the first half of the year, nearly double what they had spent in the second half of 2024, according to a new Sensor Tower report.
- Total app downloads jumped to 1.7 billion in the first half of 2025, up from 1 billion in the previous six months, while in-app revenue nearly doubled to $1.87 billion.
- ChatGPT was the most popular app in every country except for China. Users interacted with the app for an average of 16 minutes every day — just two minutes less than the average for top search engines.
Why it matters: Even outside of work hours, AI tools have become fixtures of our daily routines. People are now using ChatGPT as much as they’re using X and Reddit, and nearly as much as Google.
- Over a third of the prompts ChatGPT received last quarter were for lifestyle and entertainment topics like meal prep, shopping, and health and wellness.
Yes, but: Surprisingly, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman expressed concerns last week with how much some people, especially younger folks, rely on chatbots. As Altman put it, “Something about collectively deciding we're going to live our lives the way AI tells us feels bad and dangerous.” Nice that he’s so concerned about the problem he helped create.—LA