Meta AI surges in App Store

Meta AI climbed to No. 3 on the overall United States iPhone App Store chart on April 12, putting it ahead of ChatGPT, Claude, and Google Gemini on Appfigures’ hourly ranking. (appfigures.com) Apple’s own App Store chart showed a different snapshot the same day: ChatGPT at No. 1, Claude at No. 2, Google Gemini at No. 3, and Meta AI outside the visible top 25. TechCrunch reported Meta AI had already jumped from No. 57 to No. 5 on April 9 after Meta released its new Muse Spark model. (apple.com) (techcrunch.com) The surge followed Meta’s April 8 launch of Muse Spark, the first major model release under Meta Superintelligence Labs chief Alexandr Wang. Sensor Tower estimated about 46,000 United States iOS downloads for Meta AI on April 8, up 87% from the prior day, according to TechCrunch. (techcrunch.com) (cnbc.com) Meta did not start from zero when it launched the app. The company turned its existing Meta View companion app for Ray-Ban Meta glasses into Meta AI in April 2025, preserving an installed base, ratings, and App Store history. (about.fb.com) (appfigures.com) That rebrand gave Meta a consumer AI app tied to products it already owned: WhatsApp, Messenger, Instagram, Facebook, and its glasses hardware. Apple’s listing says new features roll out first in the Meta AI app and on Meta.ai, then spread to other Meta surfaces over time. (apple.com) (meta.com) Meta has been trying to turn that distribution into direct app usage for nearly a year. In its first five days after the April 2025 launch, Meta AI drew an estimated 788,000 downloads across the App Store and Google Play, with the United States as the biggest source, according to Appfigures. (appfigures.com) By April 9, Appfigures estimated Meta AI had reached 60.5 million lifetime installs across iOS and Android, with 25 million of those downloads coming in 2026 alone. The same report said India was Meta AI’s largest market by downloads, followed by the United States, Brazil, Pakistan, and Mexico. (techcrunch.com) The product pitch is broader than a chatbot. Apple’s App Store page says the app handles voice conversations, file analysis, image and video generation, local recommendations, and glasses management, while Meta says some features are limited by country and language. (apple.com) (meta.com) The chart picture is still moving by the hour, and the two public trackers already disagree on the exact rank. But both sources point to the same shift this weekend: Meta’s AI app moved from the middle of the pack into the front group of consumer AI apps in the United States. (appfigures.com) (apple.com)