A16z’s seventh Top 100 Consumer AI Apps list follows the money

Andreessen Horowitz has published the seventh edition of its Top 100 Consumer AI Apps ranking. ChatGPT is still at the top, and it isn’t close.

The bigger change is in the methodology. For the first time, a16z added US consumer credit-card spending data to its usual traffic metrics, and the results reshape how the AI subscription market looks.

A market carried by a small group of heavy spenders

The headline number is easy to miss. According to the report, only 4.5% of US consumers pay for any AI subscription.

Spending within that paying group is extremely uneven. The top 1% of spenders average about $903 per month on AI subscriptions. The median paying user spends $25.

a16z describes this as a power-user economy. A small number of customers account for a large share of revenue, while most people use free tiers or nothing at all.

ChatGPT on top, Claude moving up

ChatGPT leads in both usage and revenue. In a16z’s US panel, it has roughly three times as many paid subscribers as either Gemini or Claude.

The more competitive race is for second place. Claude, Anthropic’s assistant, ranks as the third most popular consumer AI app overall. On US paid subscribers, though, the report finds it has passed Gemini.

Claude’s subscriber mix also stands out. About 7.5% of its subscribers pay for plans costing $100 or more per month. For ChatGPT and Gemini, that figure is roughly 1%.

Fewer newcomers, and a list traffic data misses

On the traffic side, the ranking looks more settled. Only 11 new products entered the combined web and mobile lists in this edition, the fewest in any edition so far.

The spending data adds a twist. It surfaced 29 products that do not appear in the traffic rankings but still collect meaningful consumer spending.

OpenAI’s ad business and the agent wave

Subscriptions are no longer the only revenue model being tested. The report puts OpenAI’s advertising business at a $1 billion annualized run rate as of August 2026.

a16z points to shopping and travel queries as areas where ads could expand. It also names agentic and voice features as potential growth areas.

The report highlights Muse and Instinct as examples of early agent products. Both posted fast download and user growth during limited launches, along with high early spending.

Background: how the ranking changed

a16z has published the Top 100 Consumer AI Apps list across seven editions. Earlier versions relied mainly on traffic, ranking products by web visits and mobile activity.

The seventh edition, released around October 5, 2026, is the first to include actual card-spend data. That addition is what revealed both the power-user concentration and the list of 29 products that traffic data had missed.