Brands invested $1.3 billion into digital ads that reference AI features through May this year, up 48% compared to the same period in 2023, according to data from Sensor Tower. The surge arrives as two major AI companies prepare IPOs and consumer demand for AI tools keeps climbing.
"Consumers are actively seeking these tools out," the report read. "Advertisers have taken note."
Health and wellness ad creative containing AI-related terms recorded a 165% year-over-year increase in ad investment. Financial services, business and industrials, and media and entertainment verticals each saw AI-related ad spend grow more than 60% year over year.
AI brands themselves are pouring money into advertising. In the U.S., AI brands increased ad spend more than threefold year over year in Q1 2026, reaching $424 million. Anthropic boosted its spend by 1,184% year over year, with heavier investment in OTT and linear TV, while OpenAI raised its ad investment by 800%, concentrating on YouTube and LinkedIn.
Apps that mention AI in their descriptions are projected to reach almost 10 billion downloads in the first half of 2026, a 25% year-over-year increase. In-app purchase revenue for those apps could hit $12 billion, up 61% from last year. The findings underscore the growing importance of AI for Marketing as brands compete for attention.
ChatGPT's market share drops below 50%
ChatGPT remains the most-used AI assistant, reaching 1 billion monthly active users in May-the fastest any app has hit that milestone, the report noted. Yet its share of the AI assistant market fell below 50% for the first time in March and sat at 46% in May. Google's Gemini held 28%, and Anthropic's Claude climbed to nearly 14% in the U.S., up from 5% in December.
Generative AI drives retail site traffic
Generative AI is sending more traffic to retail websites. The computers and consumer electronics category saw a roughly fourfold increase in generative AI-referred traffic from Q4 2024 to Q1 2026, though it still accounts for just 0.8% of total traffic.
Walmart and Target, which struck partnerships with ChatGPT toward the end of last year, saw AI traffic referrals climb above 1.5% of total traffic. Amazon, which has mostly blocked ChatGPT from crawling its site and is suing Perplexity over its shopping agent, is seeing about 0.5% of generative AI referral traffic share.
"Although GenAI sources still account for less than 1% of total web traffic, they can play a meaningful role in driving brand awareness and influencing future purchase decisions," the report read.
Why this matters for marketing
AI has moved from a product feature to a core element of ad creative, brand positioning, and traffic generation. The data shows advertisers pushing hard to align messaging with consumer interest in AI tools. For marketing managers, building the skills to integrate these trends into campaign strategy is quickly becoming a baseline requirement. Structured learning, such as an AI Learning Path for Marketing Managers, can help teams turn the shift in ad spending and consumer behavior into measurable growth.
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