Nearly 10% of App Store top-chart apps mention AI, analysis of 178,637 listings shows

Nearly one in ten charting apps claims AI

An analysis published by Obelisk Club on November 6, 2026, which reached the Hacker News front page, examined 178,637 iPhone, iPad and Mac apps that appeared in an App Store top chart in 173 countries and regions at any point since October 9, 2026. According to Obelisk Club, 17,456 of those apps — 9.8% — mention AI, GPT, machine learning, generative or chatbot terms in their name or the opening of their description.

The spread across categories is uneven. Graphics & Design is the clear outlier at 43%, followed by Photo & Video at 23.4% and Developer Tools at 22.1%. At the bottom sit Navigation (2.6%), Travel and Shopping (both 3.2%) and Games (4.5%).

The AI label appears to carry no ratings advantage either way: among apps with at least 50 ratings, those mentioning AI average 4.49 stars versus 4.4 for those that do not.

Monetised apps are three times more likely to mention AI

Of the 164,056 free-to-download apps studied, 26.7% disclose in-app purchases, subscriptions, trials or Pro unlocks in their descriptions. Graphics & Design leads at 60.2% and Photo & Video at 56.1%, while Shopping (11.5%) and News (13.5%) trail — the report suggests many apps in those categories belong to businesses that earn their money outside the app.

The sharpest correlation in the dataset links monetisation and AI claims: apps that sell in-app purchases or subscriptions mention AI at 19.9%, versus 6.6% for plainly free apps — a threefold gap. Obelisk Club notes that monetisation is detected through description keywords, so the true share is likely somewhat higher.

A fifth of the charts has gone a year without an update

While 70.9% of charting apps shipped an update in the past six months, 20.3% have gone at least a year without one and 9.8% more than three years. Books (36.3%), Reference (33.6%) and News (32.5%) have the most neglected listings, while Finance is the best maintained at 10.9%.

Indies hold two-thirds of the charts

By the report's definition — at most five charting apps per developer, no app with 30,000 or more ratings, and a seller name that does not read like a company — 67.3% of charting apps come from independent developers. Their average rating of 4.41 stars among apps with at least 50 ratings is identical to that of larger publishers. Developer Tools (76.5%), Sports and Navigation top the indie share, while Games is lowest at 59.9%. Because the dataset only covers apps that charted, the share may run high.

A separate review analysis examined 165,735 US App Store reviews across 3,912 apps. Among one- and two-star reviews, subscription and pricing complaints are the most common theme at 12.7%, ahead of bugs and broken features (10.9%) and login or account problems (10%). A single review can be counted under several themes.

Why it matters

The study puts hard numbers on two trends developers and users have mostly sensed anecdotally. First, AI has become mainstream storefront language: roughly a tenth of everything charting now sells itself with AI vocabulary, clustered in creative and developer tools, and tightly coupled to apps trying to convert users into paying subscribers. Second, the charts carry notable decay, with one in five listings unmaintained for a year or more. The near-identical ratings between AI-labelled and non-AI apps suggest that simply invoking AI buys no measurable boost in perceived quality — while the dominance of price complaints in bad reviews indicates that the subscription push behind many AI features is exactly what users push back against. Obelisk Club plans quarterly refreshes that will track how the AI share, subscription conversions and abandoned apps shift over time.