The App Store is booming again, and AI may be why

Everyone said AI would kill apps. Instead, new app launches are skyrocketing.

This is evident from a new analysis by a market information supplier App figuresGlobal app releases rose 60% year-over-year in the first quarter of 2026 across both Apple’s App Store and Google Play. That percentage was an even higher 80% when we looked only at the iOS App Store. In April 2026 to date, total app releases across both stores are up 104% compared to the same time last year, and up 89% on iOS.

As Apple’s Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing, Greg “Joz” Joswiak, joked about In a recent interview: Rumors about the death of the App Store in the AI ​​era “may be greatly exaggerated.”

These findings come amid concerns that the rise of AI chatbots and agents would eventually turn users away from apps – a theory already being floated by people in the industry such as Nothing CEO Carl Pei, who is focused on building a smartphone for the AI ​​age. The New York Times also reported last year on the potential of new computing platforms to eclipse the smartphone, such as smart glasses, ambient computing devices or redesigned smartwatches with AI functions.

OpenAI is even working with famed Apple designer Jony Ive on an AI hardware device.

But there’s another possibility: AI will make it easier for everyone to create apps, sparking a rebirth of the App Store. The new app gold rush could be led by creators who have ideas but lack the technical skills to design mobile software.

Appfigures data shows that certain categories of apps see more new releases than others.

Mobile games will still account for the majority of new app releases worldwide as of Q1 2026, as in previous years. But “productivity” apps have risen to the top five this year. The ‘utilities’ category also rose to second place, and the ‘lifestyle’ apps category rose from number 5 last year to now number 3. Finally, ‘health and fitness’ style applications rounded out the top five.

The working hypothesis here is that AI-powered tools, such as Claude Code or Replit, could be behind the wave of new launches. It also seems possible that we’ll reach some kind of tipping point in terms of AI usability, where it will be easy enough for people to use these tools to build their own mobile apps of choice more quickly – or even build their first apps ever.

The explosion of new apps for Apple to review could also be to blame for some of the tech giant’s recent missteps. This week, Apple pulled rewards app Freecash from the App Store for violating its rules, after allowing the app to climb the store’s top charts and remain in the top five for months. Apple was also blindsided by a malicious cryptocurrency app, a clone of Ledger Live Lost $9.5 million in crypto from victims’ accounts.

While high-profile issues like this can make for bad PR for the App Store, the company still does a lot of work blocking and rejecting dangerous or spammy apps. From Apple most recent analysis from 2024 said the company had removed or rejected more than 17,000 apps that year for bait-and-switch violations; rejected more than 320,000 app submissions that were found to be spam, copy other apps, or were misleading; and has taken action to prevent more than 37,000 potentially fraudulent apps from reaching users on the App Store.

Yet Apple experts like John Gruber have done just that long argued that the App Store needs a kind of ‘bunco squad’ that keeps an eye out for scams or fraudulent apps that are becoming increasingly popular or have high returns.

If AI-assisted vibe coding turns out to be the cause of the recent wave of app releases, that need will only increase as more new apps flood the market, and not all of them will be beneficial.