Image AI models now drive app growth, beating chatbot upgrades

Image model releases are driving growth for AI mobile apps, generating 6.5x more downloads than traditional model updates, according to a new report from app intelligence provider Appfigures.

This marks a shift from earlier days, when the release of new models powering the conversational experiences drove more demand, alongside the new features like a voice chat interface.

For instance, ChatGPT and Gemini each added tens of millions of new downloads after releasing their respective image models, Appfigures found.

For Google’s Gemini, the release of its image model Nano Banana drove an additional 22+ million downloads in the 28 days following the introduction of the Gemini 2.5 Flash image model last August. This launch lifted the app’s downloads by more than 4x over that period, the data showed.

Meanwhile, ChatGPT added more than 12 million incremental installs in the 28 days after the introduction of its GPT-4o image model in March of last year. That’s roughly 4.5x more downloads than it saw for its GPT-4o, GPT-4.5, and GPT-5 model releases, Appfigures pointed out.

Other model releases followed similar trends, though on a smaller scale. Meta AI’s introduction of its AI video feed Vibes added an estimated 2.6 million incremental downloads in the 28 days after its September 2025 release. (Yes, technically, this is a video model, but it’s ultimately about visual content, not just text.)

Still, the report cautioned, additional downloads don’t always translate into increased mobile revenue.

Instead, new image model releases give people a reason to install the app and try out its improved image-generation capabilities. That doesn’t mean they’ll necessarily convert to paying subscribers. For example, Appfigures noted that Nano Banana drove only $181,000 in estimated gross consumer spending during the 28-day window following its release, even though it produced a larger spike in downloads than ChatGPT’s 4o image model release.

Meta AI’s launch of Vibes also led to additional downloads, but no meaningful revenue.

Among the three, only ChatGPT turned the increased attention into actual dollars.

OpenAI’s 4o image-generation model led to an estimated $70 million in gross consumer spending over the 28 days after its launch, compared with its prior baseline, Appfigures said.

The company also looked at DeepSeek in its analysis, but it didn’t fit the pattern.

While DeepSeek R1 drove 28 million downloads after its January 2025 release, it wasn’t a typical model comparison event. This was DeepSeek’s breakout moment, when it went from being relatively unknown to an overnight sensation as the tech industry learned about the techniques it used to train its AI models at a fraction of the cost of its competitors. This case highlights how curiosity can drive downloads — though in this instance, the interest wasn’t tied to an image model.