9.8 percent of App Store chart apps mention AI, Obelisk Club finds: Reveneau

Why it mattersWriting AI in the listing now tracks the paid tier, not the whole chart. A team that charges for an AI feature should decide the words before the price.

A founder asking whether to put the word AI in a store listing now has a number. Obelisk Club read 178,637 iPhone, iPad and Mac apps. Each one appeared in an App Store top chart in 173 countries since 9 October 2026. 9.8% of them mention AI, GPT, machine learning, generative, LLM or chatbot. The word is in the name or the start of the description. The report is dated 6 November 2026.

The share that uses the AI word is much higher in some categories than in others. Obelisk Club says Graphics and Design leads at 43.0% of charted apps. Photo and Video follows at 23.4%. Developer Tools sits at 22.1%. Productivity is at 16.9%. Health and Fitness at 15.2%. At the other end, Shopping, Travel and Navigation sit under 3.5%.

AI tracks the paid tier

Apps that sell in-app purchases or subscriptions mention AI three times as often as plain free apps, Obelisk Club reports. The split is 19.9% against 6.6%. 26.7% of free-to-download apps sell a subscription, a trial, a Pro unlock or an in-app purchase. The rate is 60.2% in Graphics and Design and 56.1% in Photo and Video. In Shopping it is 11.5%.

Obelisk Club says ratings barely move with the word. Apps that mention AI average 4.49 stars. The rest average 4.4. Both figures count only apps with at least 50 ratings. The report does not say the AI word causes the other effects. It says the word and the paid tier show up together.

Who holds the charts

Obelisk Club uses its own definition of an independent developer. The seller must have at most five charted apps. No single app has 30,000 ratings or more. The seller name does not read as a company. On that definition, 67.3% of charted apps come from independent developers. Independent and larger-publisher apps average the same 4.41 stars among apps with at least 50 ratings.

20.3% of charted apps have gone a year or more without an update, Obelisk Club says. 9.8% have gone more than three years. The highest stale shares are in Books at 36.3%, Reference at 33.6% and News at 32.5%. Finance has the lowest at 10.9%.

What people complain about

Obelisk Club read 165,735 recent reviews of 3,912 apps on the US App Store. In 1 and 2 star reviews, 12.7% complain about subscription and price. 10.9% complain about bugs or broken features. 10% complain about login and account. One review can fall under several themes, Obelisk Club says.

The report is published under CC BY 4.0. It will refresh each quarter. From the next edition it will show change over time, Obelisk Club says.

Source

Primary source: Obelisk Club, "App Store 2026 in numbers".
Discussion: Hacker News thread.

This item was written by an AI system from the linked source. Reveneau is responsible for what it publishes.