ChatGPT becomes world’s most downloaded app with 1.36 billion installs since launch

AI platform outpaces TikTok and Instagram to become the world’s most downloaded app

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Nivetha Dayanand, Assistant Business Editor
Can you name the most downloaded app on earth?
Can you name the most downloaded app on earth?
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Dubai: For years, TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook dominated the world’s app charts, setting the benchmark for global reach and engagement. That dominance has now been disrupted. In just two and a half years, ChatGPT has not only joined that elite group but taken the top spot as the most downloaded app on the planet.

Data from AppMagic shows that between January and November 2025, ChatGPT was downloaded more than 902 million times, outpacing TikTok by nearly 200 million installs and leaving Instagram trailing by some 380 million. That surge has pushed ChatGPT’s total downloads to 1.36 billion since launch, a staggering achievement for an app that entered the mainstream less than three years ago.

AI moves into the mainstream

The app’s rise highlights how quickly artificial intelligence has moved from a niche technology to a global phenomenon. OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which brought generative AI into everyday use, has become the industry’s flagship platform, driving the fast-growing AI ecosystem.

Its growth trajectory now mirrors that of TikTok in its early years, an indicator of both lasting engagement and rapid adoption. The data also suggests users are not just experimenting with AI tools but actively integrating them into their digital routines.

Competitors far behind

TikTok remains the second-most-downloaded app this year, with 703 million installs, while Instagram follows with 521.6 million. Facebook, WhatsApp, and Temu round out the top five with 404 to 444 million downloads each. Google’s Gemini app is the only other AI entrant in the top ten, securing 392 million installs.

By November 2025, ChatGPT held an 81.8% share of the global AI chatbot market, more than four times that of its top five rivals combined, according to previous TechGaged research. Despite emerging players like DeepSeek and Perplexity intensifying competition, ChatGPT’s market leadership remains firm.

That grip will likely continue into next year as user engagement deepens and AI integration extends across industries.

Nivetha Dayanand
Nivetha DayanandAssistant Business Editor
Nivetha Dayanand is Assistant Business Editor at Gulf News, covering aviation, financial markets and commodities. A business and financial journalist with a strong interest in multimedia storytelling, she regularly takes complex financial and economic subjects beyond the written word, producing explainer videos that make them easier for a wider audience to understand. Nivetha has interviewed senior policymakers, business leaders and global financial figures both on and off camera. Her past guests include UAE Minister of Economy and Tourism Abdulla bin Touq Al Marri, Khaled bin Alwaleed Al Saud, a member of the House of Saud and the founder and CEO of KBW Ventures, Jihad Azour, Director of the Middle East and Central Asia Department at the International Monetary Fund and Indian ministers Hardeep Singh Puri and N. Chandrababu Naidu. She has also hosted and moderated panels, conferences and awards shows, bringing her newsroom experience to live conversations on business, finance and the economy. An Erasmus Mundus journalism alum, Nivetha is drawn to stories that affect people directly and to reporting that gives a platform to voices that might otherwise go unheard. She was among the first journalists to speak to Petrofac employees in the UAE about unpaid salaries, broke the news of the planned demolition of Dubai’s well-known “Toyota Building”, and helped set the record straight on widely circulated claims that a giant replica of the Moon was coming to Dubai. More recently, her exclusive interview with EDGE Group CEO Hamad Al Marar revealed how the UAE-based defence group deployed its systems along the country’s shore border and established a geofence around the UAE within 48 hours of the February 28 escalation. Prior to joining Gulf News, Nivetha worked at ITP Media, where she helped launch Finance Middle East, a new publication covering the region’s financial sector. Her role spanned reporting and editing, video production, interviews and events. Across print, digital, and video, she focuses on finding the people behind business stories and explaining why those stories matter to the audience reading or watching them.
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