AI companion apps have quietly become one of consumer technology’s fastest-growing categories. According to Appfigures data reported by TechCrunch, companion apps generated $82 million in consumer spending in the first half of 2025 alone and are on track to exceed $120 million for the full year — a 64% jump over 2024. Downloads tell the same story: roughly 60 million installs in the first half of the year, up 88% year on year. For a category that barely existed three years ago, this is the moment it crossed from novelty to industry.
The economics behind that growth are unusually strong. Revenue per download nearly doubled in a year, from $0.52 to $1.18 — evidence that users are not merely curious but willing to pay for sustained relationships with digital personas.
Who captures the value
The market is sharply top-heavy. Appfigures found that the top 10% of companion apps capture around 89% of category revenue, a concentration pattern familiar from dating apps and mobile gaming. The winners share a common playbook:
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Subscribe- Subscription tiers that gate conversation depth, memory and customization;
- Consumable credits for image generation and premium interactions;
- Persona marketplaces where users design or select characters, increasing switching costs;
- Multimodal upsells — voice, image and video layered on top of text chat.
A significant share of category revenue sits in the adult segment, where willingness to pay is historically higher and churn lower. Specialist AI companion services in the adult segment pair conversational models with image generation, bundling what mainstream apps sell separately — and their per-user monetization reflects it.
The European angle
Europe is a growing consumer base but a complicated operating environment. The EU AI Act’s transparency provisions require users to be told they are interacting with an AI system, and the Digital Services Act adds age-assurance expectations for adult-oriented services. For operators, compliance is becoming a moat: platforms that invested early in disclosure, verification and content controls — specialist platforms such as Lovescape among the adult-segment examples — face lower regulatory risk than grey-market apps distributed outside official stores.
Payments remain the quiet bottleneck. Mainstream app stores restrict adult content, pushing much of the segment to web distribution and direct card processing, where European PSPs apply high-risk classifications. The result is a structural margin gap between mainstream and adult operators — and a consolidation incentive, as scale players absorb compliance and processing costs more easily.
What to watch next
Three signals will define the category’s next phase: whether revenue per download continues climbing as multimodal features mature; whether EU enforcement actions set precedents on AI disclosure; and whether mainstream social platforms enter the space directly, compressing the independents. The capital markets are already treating companionship as infrastructure rather than fad — the spending data suggests they are right.
FAQ
How big is the AI companion app market?
Consumer spending in companion apps reached $82 million in the first half of 2025 and is projected by Appfigures to exceed $120 million for the full year, with cumulative lifetime spending around $221 million. Downloads grew 88% year on year.
How do AI companion apps make money?
Primarily through subscriptions that unlock longer memory, deeper conversation and customization, supplemented by credit systems for image or voice generation. The adult segment monetizes at higher rates per user than mainstream companion apps.
What regulations affect AI companions in Europe?
The EU AI Act requires clear disclosure that users are talking to an AI, and the Digital Services Act imposes age-assurance duties on adult-oriented services. Compliance costs increasingly favour larger, established operators.
Image caption 1: Consumer spending on AI companion apps nearly doubled year on year in 2025.
Image caption 2: Subscriptions and credit systems drive the category’s revenue concentration.
Image caption 3: EU disclosure rules are reshaping how companion apps operate in Europe.
