Another Crazy Day in AI: A Data-Backed Look at Gen App Usage

Hello, AI Enthusiasts.

How’s the pace of your week so far? AI’s certainly keeping its foot on the gas.

A new Top 100 Gen AI Consumer Apps analysis from Andreessen Horowitz partners charts the evolution of everyday AI use. It’s a detailed look at how AI adoption is settling into patterns: which apps are sticking, where global challengers are gaining ground, and what new use cases are surprising even close watchers of the space.

Meanwhile, a billionaire investor is warning that ignoring AI today is as risky as ignoring the internet in the 1980s.

And Anthropic is running tests of Claude for Chrome. What makes it noteworthy isn’t just the browser integration, but the built-in defenses against manipulative “prompt injections.”

Here's another crazy day in AI:

• Ranking the most used gen apps

• Billionaire investor warns: don’t fall behind on AI

• Claude AI begins piloting browser actions in Chrome

• Some AI tools to try out

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TODAY'S FEATURED ITEM: Top 100 Gen Apps, 5th Edition

Image Credit: Wowza (created with Ideogram)

Is the generative AI gold rush finally settling into a mature ecosystem?

A comprehensive analysis from Andreessen Horowitz partners Olivia Moore and Daisy Zhao examines the fifth edition of their influential Top 100 Gen AI Consumer Apps ranking, providing insights into how everyday AI usage has evolved over two and a half years. This report tracks the most popular AI-first web products and mobile apps, revealing surprising trends about market stabilization, international competition, and emerging use cases that are reshaping how consumers interact with artificial intelligence.

Some of the notable findings from this edition include:

• The web rankings saw 11 newcomers this round versus 17 in March, pointing to fewer major shake-ups in the competitive landscape

• Google entered the rankings with four separate products for the first time, with Gemini landing second place while generating roughly one-eighth of ChatGPT's web traffic

• Mobile usage patterns differ significantly—Gemini attracts nearly half of ChatGPT's user base and sees overwhelming adoption on Android devices at 90%

• Companies based in China developed nearly half of the top mobile apps, particularly dominating photo and video categories through brands like Meitu and Bytedance

• AI-powered coding platforms show impressive user loyalty, with customers actually increasing their spending over time rather than churning out

• A core group of fourteen companies has appeared in every single ranking since this study began, spanning diverse use cases from conversation to creativity

• These consistent performers take varied approaches to technology—some invest in building their own models while others integrate existing ones

• Market volatility continues as Grok scaled rapidly to over 20 million users while DeepSeek experienced a significant 40% decline from its earlier peak

Looking at two and a half years of data, some patterns become clearer while others raise new questions. Users don't appear to be consolidating around a single AI tool—instead, they seem willing to use different applications for different tasks. The geographic distribution offers another puzzle piece: while Chinese-developed apps perform remarkably well globally on mobile, the companies with the most sustained success come from a relatively small group of countries. This suggests that building a lasting consumer AI product might require certain conditions or approaches that aren't universally available.

The performance of coding platforms deserves particular attention. These tools have moved beyond the experimental phase to become genuine productivity enhancers for their users, as evidenced by their strong retention and expansion metrics. Combined with the overall stabilization in rankings, this suggests we might be witnessing the early stages of market maturation. However, the continued presence of dramatic winners and losers indicates the space remains dynamic. Whether current leaders will maintain their positions or face disruption from the next generation of AI innovations remains an open question that will likely define the industry's trajectory over the coming years.

Read the full article here.

Watch it on YouTube here. Listen on Apple Podcasts here. Listen on Spotify here.

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OTHER INTERESTING AI HIGHLIGHTS:

Billionaire Investor Warns: Don’t Fall Behind On AI

/Jessica Stillman, Contributor, on Inc.com

Mark Cuban isn’t mincing words when it comes to AI adoption. On Emma Grede’s podcast, the billionaire investor compared ignoring AI today to ignoring the internet or personal computers in the 1980s—and he warned those who resist are setting themselves up to fail. Cuban urged entrepreneurs and professionals alike to spend serious time experimenting with tools like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Perplexity. His blunt message: if you’re not learning AI now, you’re already falling behind.

Read more here.

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Claude AI Begins Piloting Browser Actions in Chrome

/Anthropic Newsroom

Anthropic is piloting Claude for Chrome, a new browser extension that allows the AI assistant to take direct actions online—like managing emails, filling forms, or scheduling meetings. While the tool could make Claude dramatically more useful, Anthropic stresses safety challenges, particularly around “prompt injection” attacks that trick AI into harmful actions. In early tests, new mitigations cut attack success rates from 23.6% to 11.2%, with some scenarios reduced to zero. The company is starting with 1,000 trusted testers as it works to refine protections before a wider release.

Read more here.

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SOME AI TOOLS TO TRY OUT:

• Hermes 4 – Open hybrid reasoning model, creative, transparent, and uncensored.

• Fyxer – AI email triage, replies in your tone, and meeting notes.

• MumbleNote – Talk, and it turns meetings and ideas into instant notes.

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That’s a wrap on today’s Almost Daily craziness.

Catch us almost every day—almost! 😉

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EXCITING NEWS:

The Another Crazy Day in AI newsletter is on LinkedIn!!!

Leveraging AI for Enhanced Content: As part of our commitment to exploring new technologies, we used AI to help curate and refine our newsletters. This enriches our content and keeps us at the forefront of digital innovation, ensuring you stay informed with the latest trends and developments.

Another Crazy Day in AI: Who Owns Machine-Made Masterpieces?

Hello, AI Enthusiasts.

A recent 11-minute podcast digs into a live case that could reshape how we think about authorship and ownership in the age of generative tools. The debate is no longer just theoretical. Lawmakers and courts are beginning to test whether old copyright frameworks can handle creations that mix human direction with machine output.

Meanwhile, YouTube has been quietly “improving” Shorts with AI. It sharpens faces, tweaks textures, and smooths skin, all without asking. Is this a helpful touch-up, or a subtle rewriting of reality?

And as hype swings between “AI will save us” and “AI will doom us,” Ethan Mollick points to a quieter truth: steady, exponential progress. Year by year, benchmarks and costs tell the real story of how quickly AI’s capabilities are shifting.

Here's another crazy day in AI:

• Copyright in the digital age

• YouTube secretly uses AI to alter creators’ videos

• Ethan Mollick on steady exponential AI progress

• Some AI tools to try out

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TODAY'S FEATURED ITEM: The AI Copyright Puzzle

Image Credit: Wowza (created with Ideogram)

Can machines create art that deserves the same legal protections as human creativity?

In the recent episode of The Indicator from Planet Money titled Can you copyright artwork made using AI?, hosts Emma Jacobs, Wailin Wong, Julia Ritchey, and Kate Concannon explore whether copyright law extends to works created with the help of artificial intelligence. The 11-minute segment, produced by NPR, focuses on the case of Ankit Sahni’s AI-assisted remix of Van Gogh’s The Starry Night. While the U.S. Copyright Office rejected his attempt to register the work, the case is now being challenged in Canada.

The episode unpacks the debate by looking at how copyright law, written with human authorship in mind, handles the growing involvement of machines in the creative process. Instead of offering easy answers, it examines different perspectives on whether AI-generated works qualify as original, who should be credited, and what protections—if any—apply.

The episode looks at:

• Copyright’s foundation as a system designed to protect and reward human creators

• The unresolved question of whether AI-assisted works should receive the same protection

• Why Sahni’s Van Gogh remix has become a significant test case

• The lack of clear or consistent legal guidance for AI-generated creations

• Broader questions around originality, ownership, and the definition of creativity

The questions raised here are far from settled. Copyright law was developed with human authorship in mind, and AI introduces scenarios that the original framework was never designed to address. This leaves lawmakers and courts to decide how, or if, existing protections should apply to creations where human and machine contributions are deeply intertwined.

What makes this moment significant is how quickly theoretical debates are entering real legal settings. The Sahni case is one of the first examples of an AI-generated work being tested in copyright systems across different countries, and the eventual outcomes could influence how similar disputes are handled worldwide.

For now, what we are left with is the sense of an unfolding conversation. These cases will take time to resolve, and the answers may vary across jurisdictions. But each development contributes to a larger dialogue about creativity, authorship, and how societies choose to recognize and protect new forms of artistic expression.

Listen to the podcast here.

Listen on YouTube Music here. Listen on Apple Podcasts here. Listen on Spotify here.

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OTHER INTERESTING AI HIGHLIGHTS:

YouTube Secretly Uses AI To Alter Creators’ Videos

/Thomas Germain, Senior Technology Journalist, on BBC

YouTube has quietly been using AI to enhance creators’ videos—sharpening faces, tweaking clothing textures, and smoothing skin—without telling them. For some creators, the changes are subtle but unsettling, raising concerns about authenticity and audience trust. While YouTube calls it a test to improve Shorts’ video quality, critics argue it blurs the line between creator intent and algorithmic mediation. As AI quietly reshapes what we see, questions grow about what it means for our shared sense of reality.

Read more here.

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Ethan Mollick On Steady Exponential AI Progress

/Ethan Mollick, on LinkedIn

Ethan Mollick points out that despite the dramatic swings between hype and doom online, AI progress remains steady and exponential. Benchmarks like ARC-AGI and “humanity’s last exam” continue to show meaningful gains alongside rapid cost reductions. While things may look stable month-to-month, the year-over-year advances reveal just how fast the field is moving. The story isn’t one of collapse or overhype, but of continuous momentum reshaping what AI can do.

Read more here.

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SOME AI TOOLS TO TRY OUT:

• Informed – Daily news briefings read in any voice (even cloned).

• TransGull – AI translations for speech, text, images, and video.

• Reeroll – Make custom videos just by chatting with AI.

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That’s a wrap on today’s Almost Daily craziness.

Catch us almost every day—almost! 😉

---

EXCITING NEWS:

The Another Crazy Day in AI newsletter is on LinkedIn!!!

Leveraging AI for Enhanced Content: As part of our commitment to exploring new technologies, we used AI to help curate and refine our newsletters. This enriches our content and keeps us at the forefront of digital innovation, ensuring you stay informed with the latest trends and developments.

Another Crazy Day in AI: Why AI Projects Need More Than Technology

Hello, AI Enthusiasts.

Hope your week’s going well so far. Today’s a reminder to pause and think ahead—just like with AI literacy.

The Distinguished Vice President in Gartner's Digital Business Leadership research team makes a strong case: organizations need more than technical experts; they need a workforce that sees how AI connects to strategy, ethics, and results. Without it, the risks grow. With it, the opportunities expand.

Even Meta needs a breather... the company has hit pause on AI hiring. Strategic reset or early warning sign?

Meanwhile, Google's Pixel 10 just dropped, and it's positioned as the company’s most AI-loaded phone yet.

Here's another crazy day in AI:

• The role of AI literacy in enterprise success

• Meta pauses its AI hiring surge

• 9 ways AI transforms the Pixel 10 into your smartest phone yet

• Some AI tools to try out

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TODAY'S FEATURED ITEM: The Human Foundation for AI Success

Image Credit: Wowza (created with Ideogram)

What happens when organizations invest heavily in AI technology but overlook the human knowledge needed to use it effectively?

Graham Waller, Distinguished Analyst VP at Gartner, examines this disconnect in his research on enterprise AI implementation. His findings challenge a common assumption that acquiring AI technology automatically translates to business transformation. Instead, Waller's analysis reveals that organizations often struggle because they underestimate the breadth of knowledge required to deploy AI successfully within complex business environments.

Points raised in the article include:

• AI literacy as a business requirement: It helps connect technology with strategy, long-term goals, and ethical considerations.

• Demonstrating business outcomes: Programs gain credibility when learning is tied directly to measurable results.

• Different levels for different roles: Four dimensions — Foundations, Value, Engineering, and Governance — apply in different ways across the organization.

• Finding and addressing skill gaps: Ongoing assessment keeps literacy aligned with changing needs.

• Practical approaches to learning: Combining formal study, peer collaboration, and hands-on experience helps embed knowledge.

• Continuous adaptation: Programs must evolve as the technology and its applications continue to advance.

The discussion makes it clear that literacy is not a matter of technical training alone. Organizations that treat AI as purely a technology project often miss the bigger picture... the human understanding needed to apply it thoughtfully, communicate across teams, and build trust around its use. In that sense, literacy provides a framework that supports more responsible and effective adoption.

Another important consideration is how literacy differs depending on role. Business leaders may only need a broad view of AI’s potential and risks, while technical teams require deeper expertise in engineering and data practices. By tailoring literacy to these needs, organizations avoid both oversimplification and unnecessary complexity, making the knowledge more relevant and actionable.

Waller emphasizes that literacy cannot be static. Because AI evolves rapidly, so too must the way people learn about it. Programs that combine structured learning with real-world application stand a better chance of keeping pace, ensuring that organizations not only understand today’s technology but are prepared for the uncertainties of tomorrow. And while this work is framed as literacy, it naturally overlaps with governance, shaping how organizations set policies, weigh risks, and build transparency into their use of AI. Taken together, literacy and governance form complementary pieces of the same challenge: making sure AI serves the organization responsibly and sustainably.

Read the full article here.

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OTHER INTERESTING AI HIGHLIGHTS:

Meta Pauses Its AI Hiring Surge

/Dylan Butts, Associate Reporter, on CNBC

Meta has paused hiring for its new artificial intelligence division, marking a shift after months of aggressive spending on top talent and billion-dollar acquisitions. The move, described by the company as “basic organizational planning,” comes as Meta restructures its AI operations into four new teams under Meta Superintelligence Labs. Analysts suggest this is less about scaling back and more about giving the company time to absorb its new hires, including Scale AI’s founder Alexandr Wang, who now leads Meta’s Llama model efforts. Still, the pause reflects broader industry concerns that AI investment may be overheating amid a sell-off in tech stocks.

Read more here.

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9 Ways AI Transforms the Pixel 10 Into Your Smartest Phone Yet

/Tyler Kugler, Product Manager, on Google Blogs – The Keyword

Google’s new Pixel 10 lineup arrives with nine AI-powered features designed to make everyday life easier, all running on the new Tensor G5 chip with Gemini Nano. Highlights include Magic Cue, which proactively surfaces info across apps, Voice Translate for real-time multilingual phone calls, and expanded Gemini Live visual assistance through the camera. Pixel 10 also integrates tools like NotebookLM, AI-powered journaling, Gboard writing support, and even music creation through Recorder. Together, these upgrades position the Pixel 10 as Google’s most AI-driven phone yet, blending productivity, creativity, and personal wellbeing.

Read more here.

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SOME AI TOOLS TO TRY OUT:

• Xavier – AI that makes consulting-grade decks in seconds.

• Eleven Music API – Generate studio-quality music from text prompts.

• GraphiteChat – AI that explains code and suggests fixes in PRs.

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That’s a wrap on today’s Almost Daily craziness.

Catch us almost every day—almost! 😉

---

EXCITING NEWS:

The Another Crazy Day in AI newsletter is on LinkedIn!!!

Leveraging AI for Enhanced Content: As part of our commitment to exploring new technologies, we used AI to help curate and refine our newsletters. This enriches our content and keeps us at the forefront of digital innovation, ensuring you stay informed with the latest trends and developments.