It was the result of several innovations inside the app economy that finally lined up at once.

The $85 billion spent globally on non-game apps last year did not come from a surge in new users, because we see that downloads across mobile are largely reduced. 

But then, time spent has stabilised. So what changed was how people pay, and why they keep coming back.

Building habits

For years, while reach or downloads were used to describe how successful mobile apps were, games thrived because they could attract millions of casual players, monetise a small fraction of them, and repeat the cycle. Non-game apps didn’t match that efficiency before 2025.

That gap has now closed. Generative AI apps flipped the model and instead of focusing on new installs, they focused on becoming useful enough to open daily, sometimes dozens of times a day. 

The result is visible in Sensor Tower’s latest State of Mobile findings, which show global app spending rising 21% year-on-year. Sessions in AI apps crossed one trillion in 2025, growing faster than downloads. That tells us engagement is now the main engine.

This is a shift from scale-first to habit-first design.

Why AI assistants won, not just AI tools

Not all AI apps benefited equally. Assistants took over because they helped with multiple needs. Writing, search, coding help, image creation, planning, all in one place. That breadth reduced churn and increased willingness to pay.

ChatGPT’s $3.4 billion in in-app revenue is less important than how quickly it got there. No app has crossed $3 billion in annual consumer spending this fast. 

That speed is commendable because it shows that users accepted subscriptions and premium tiers without years of conditioning.

Others followed, with Google, Microsoft and X not just building similar features, but embedding assistants into daily workflows. Image and video generation became turning points, not side features. Once users could create, not just ask, time spent jumped.

Big tech’s return reshaped the field

Early AI growth came from smaller, fast-moving developers. That phase is over.

By 2025, OpenAI and DeepSeek controlled nearly half of all AI app downloads. Large technology firms expanded speedily, taking close to a third of the market. Together, they crowded out earlier competitors who lacked capital, distribution, or ecosystem access.

This concentration shows that AI on mobile is entering a maturity phase faster than previous app categories. Winners are pulling away early, leaving limited room for mid-tier challengers.

Mobile became the default AI gateway

One of the most underappreciated findings in the data is where AI usage happens.

More than half of AI assistant users in the United States now access these services only on mobile. A year earlier, that group barely existed. Phones are no longer secondary screens for AI, they are the main ones.

This has implications beyond apps. It explains why voice, camera input, and real-time image generation are advancing so quickly. Mobile limitations forced AI products to become faster, simpler, and more responsive.

Games did not collapse, they were overtaken

It is tempting to describe this as a loss for gaming. It isn’t.

Games still generate enormous revenue and attention. But their growth has slowed as user acquisition costs rose and playtime competed with social media, streaming, and now AI. Meanwhile, non-game apps learned how to monetise without friction.

Subscriptions, tiered access, and clear value exchanges worked. Users paid because they understood what they were getting back; saved time, better output, or creative control.

What this means for 2026

The mobile market has entered a monetisation-first era. Growth will not come from more downloads but from better use, clearer value, and products that are used in daily routines.

AI went beyond adding a new category to resetting expectations across the app ecosystem. Productivity, creativity, and even entertainment apps are now judged by how quickly they produce results, not how long they keep users scrolling.

The post $85bn, 48bn Hours, 1 Trillion Sessions: How Non-Game Apps Finally Overtook Mobile Games appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.

What happened instead is a lack of clarity in Microsoft’s rebranding. Over the past week, reports have spread across Reddit, Hacker News and X saying that Microsoft Office has been renamed “Microsoft 365 Copilot”. It sounds believable, but it is also wrong.

Gareth Oystryk, senior director of Marketing, Microsoft 365, clarified: “We have not made any recent naming changes to our Office apps. Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, the Office apps within the Microsoft 365 productivity suite, remain unchanged.

In November 2022, we renamed only the Office “hub” app for web and mobile to the Microsoft 365 app. In January 2025, we updated it to the Microsoft 365 Copilot app to reflect its role in bringing Copilot and Microsoft 365 productivity experiences together in one place.”

The source of the confusion was that Office.com redirected users towards what Microsoft calls the Microsoft 365 Copilot app. 

This is not a new office suite, it’s a hub. One place to open Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook, alongside Copilot features, under a single banner.

Microsoft set this path years ago. In 2022, the company dropped the Office name at the brand level and replaced it with Microsoft 365. The familiar apps never disappeared. What changed was the wrapper around them. 

Then, as Copilot became central to Microsoft’s pitch, the old Office app was renamed again, this time as the Microsoft 365 Copilot app.

That is where the language tripped people up. On Microsoft’s own site, users are greeted with the line: “The Microsoft 365 Copilot app (formerly Office)…”. Read quickly, it looks final, almost like an end notice for Office itself. That single phrase was enough to birth the idea that Office had been fully replaced.

It has not. Word is still Word. Excel still opens spreadsheets. PowerPoint still builds slides. Businesses and individuals can even buy Office 2024 as a standalone package, without cloud tools and without Copilot. That option alone should settle the case.

The timing made things worse. Microsoft has recently pushed the Copilot name harder than ever, positioning it as the front door to productivity. Office.com now reiterates that message. The result is a blurred line between the apps people use every day and the hub Microsoft wants them to launch from.

What surprises me is not that users are confused, but that Microsoft seems surprised by the reaction. So far, the company has not publicly stepped in to clear the air. Silence, in this case, has allowed assumptions to do the talking.

There are risks here. Some users now believe Office no longer exists. Others assume Copilot is mandatory or that familiar tools are being phased out. For businesses, especially cautious ones, that kind of uncertainty slows decisions and feeds distrust.

This episode is about unclear messaging layered on top of years of background rebrands. Microsoft may see Microsoft 365 Copilot as a neat, unified story. Many users see something else entirely, a once-simple product family wrapped in names that no longer explain themselves.

Office, whatever Microsoft chooses to call it at the top level, is still very much alive. The problem is that Microsoft’s own words have made that harder to see.

The post UPDATED: Microsoft Office is Not Becoming Microsoft 365 Copilot – Here’s What’s Causing the Confusion appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.

With this, the company is moving from a writing-focused tool to a bigger productivity platform designed to help users work more efficiently across multiple apps.

The new Superhuman identity coincides with the launch of Superhuman Go, an AI assistant integrated into Grammarly’s existing browser extension. 

Users can now connect Go to apps like Gmail, Google Drive, Google Calendar, and Jira, allowing it to draft emails, suggest improvements, schedule meetings, and even log tickets automatically. 

Superhuman said it plans to expand Go’s capabilities to pull data from CRMs and internal systems to make suggestions even more contextually accurate.

“All Grammarly users can try out Superhuman Go right now,” the company said, adding that Pro subscriptions cost $12 per month (billed annually), offering grammar and tone support in multiple languages, while the Business plan costs $33 per month (billed annually) and includes Superhuman Mail access.

Superhuman is also exploring the integration of AI into Coda, its document platform, to automate content creation and enhance workflow. The company’s aim is to compete directly with productivity giants like Notion, ClickUp, and Google Workspace, all of which have launched AI-powered features in recent years.

CEO Shishir Mehrotra noted that “Superhuman represents a fundamental shift in how we think about AI at work. The name Superhuman reflects our belief that AI should amplify human capability, not replace it or force people to adapt to its limitations.

“Our vision is AI that makes every person better by working everywhere they work, understanding how they actually work, and bringing them what they need at the right time, so people can stop managing tools and start focusing on work that matters.”

Superhuman Go comes with a suite of first- and third-party agents accessible via the Superhuman Agent Store. These include connector agents that pull real-time data from tools like Google Workspace, Outlook, Jira, and Confluence; Grammarly writing agents that provide plagiarism checks, style suggestions, and reader insights; and partner agents from companies such as Quizlet, Fireflies, and Speechify. 

Users can customise Go with multiple agents, making the assistant a proactive collaborator rather than a passive tool.

Noam Lovinsky, CPO of Superhuman, explained the rationale behind Go:

“While other AI tools ask you to change how you work, Go learns how you work and meets you there. It’s the difference between having an AI tool you have to remember to use and having an AI partner that’s actively working with you.”

Superhuman has also introduced the Superhuman Alliance, a partner programme that provides technology and service partners with tools and resources to develop AI agents and deliver solutions to customers. 

Unlike traditional programmes that reward scale, the Alliance aims to enable partners of all sizes to innovate and contribute to the platform.

Despite the rebranding and new AI features, Superhuman stressed that existing Grammarly, Coda, and Superhuman Mail users retain full control of their data. The company does not sell user content or allow third parties to train AI models on it.

The Superhuman suite is currently available through paid plans, with Superhuman Go accessible via Grammarly’s browser extension on Chrome and Edge. 

Mac and Windows users will see support rolled out soon. For a limited period through February 1, 2026, all Go features are available at no additional cost, giving users a full preview of the platform’s productivity.

The post Grammarly Rebrands as Superhuman, Launches AI Assistant Superhuman Go appeared first on Tech | Business | Economy.

For this purpose, various productivity software and tools are available that can enhance your productivity and allow you to be more productive.

Whether it is communication, collaboration, creating documents, or giving presentations, these tools are making life much easier for employees these days.

If you are not using productivity apps, you are missing out on a lot, and below we have discussed several reasons why you should use productivity tools.

1. Enhance Productivity

As the name suggests, these productivity tools can enhance your productivity by a lot by allowing you to achieve more in less time.

The tasks that used to take hours and days to be completed, can be completed in less time with these productivity tools, as they make things much easier for you.

These apps allow you to work from anywhere on any device so that you can get your tasks completed without any worries. Plus, these tools also improve your communication, collaboration, teamwork, and efficiency, all of which ultimately result in greater productivity.

2. Increase Efficiency

One of the top reasons why you should start using productivity tools is that they can allow you to become more efficient and help you save time.

These tools can help you in completing both simple and complex tasks, which can ultimately save you time. Whether it is sorting data or creating a report from a website, these tools can help you finish the job much faster.

For many employees around the world, productivity tools have become a lifeline, as they allow them to complete tasks without much hassle and it has become impossible for them to imagine a life without these tools.

3. Automate Tasks for You

You might not know it but productivity tools can automate various tasks for you. Whether it is making a schedule, sending emails, or creating reports, these apps and tools can do various tasks for you and this can allow you to strike a balance between work and life and make your life a little less hectic.

These tools can even automatically import events and other things like Bradford Prayer times and Azan times so that you are well aware of your upcoming schedule.

4. Improve Communication

Apart from other benefits, these tools can improve your communication, especially with your team members and co-workers.

Through productivity tools, you can stay in touch with your team members in real-time, discuss various projects, and gather information about upcoming information effortlessly.

You can also set up your appointments, meetings, and reminders so that you attend those meetings and be an important member of the team.

5. Enhance Teamwork and Collaboration

The traditional work model has changed after the pandemic and most businesses have started shifting towards a remote work model that works in favor of both the company and employees.

For people who are working remotely, these tools can help boost teamwork and collaboration among coworkers.

The pandemic has already shown that teamwork and collaboration don’t require face-to-face interaction and with these tools, you can collaborate on multiple projects with your team members simultaneously without any hassle.

6. You Can Work from Anywhere

As mentioned earlier, the majority of productivity tools are cloud-based services, which means that as long as you have an active internet connection, you can access them on any device from anywhere in the world.

For remote workers and digital nomads, this is just superb because they can work from virtually anywhere in the world and also enjoy their lives at the same time without getting overwhelmed by thoughts of lagging behind in work.

[Featured Image Credit]

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