GenAI app spending surges to $824M as marketers embrace AI agents, AppsFlyer reports

AppsFlyer’s latest annual mobile app trends report shows that 2025 was a breakout year for GenAI-driven products and AI-enabled marketing workflows. The category posted the strongest growth across Android and one of the fastest on iOS, with global consumer spend on GenAI apps reaching $824 million and installs rising 16% year over year.

The analysis highlights the acceleration of AI assistants, creative tools, and productivity apps, as well as the early adoption of AI agents within marketing organizations. For the first time, AppsFlyer tracked how teams are integrating agentic systems into day-to-day operations.

According to the report, 57% of AI agent usage centered on technical tasks such as configuration, automation, and data integrity checks. Another 32% supported business optimization activities. Agent adoption varied by vertical: gaming teams applied automation to preserve margins and strengthen efficiency, while retail and fintech marketers used agents to scale traffic, improve volume, and streamline repetitive operations. AppsFlyer characterizes the trend as the beginning of “supervised automation,” in which AI assists execution while humans maintain strategic control.

Alongside AI adoption, the report points to several macro shifts across the app marketing landscape:

Global user acquisition (UA) investment hit $78 billion, up 13% year over year. All growth came from iOS, where spend climbed 35%, while Android remained flat. Non-gaming apps accounted for most of the expansion, increasing their UA investment 18% to $53 billion.

Remarketing spending rose sharply, up 37% to $31.3 billion. Remarketing now represents 29% of total app marketing outlay. iOS markets saw the steepest increases, with transportation, travel, and finance verticals recording triple-digit growth.

Shopping emerged as a major force in UA shifts, driven by aggressive China-based ecommerce budgets. Shopping-related UA spend rose 70% globally and 123% on iOS, reshaping category and geographic distribution.

Europe stood out as a growth region, with Spain, Italy and the United Kingdom among the top performers. The United States remained the largest app marketing market globally, accounting for 42% of UA spend.

Platform performance diverged significantly across regions. iOS paid installs surged 40–85% across Western markets. Android experienced declines in mature markets such as the U.S. (–30%) and UK (–13%) but posted strong gains in emerging markets.

AppsFlyer’s findings are based on aggregated data from 32 billion paid installs across 45,000 apps worldwide, spanning gaming, ecommerce, finance, lifestyle, and additional categories.