Breaking the cocoon of vertical AI applications

In the diversified landscape of AI applications, certain applications stand out for their outstanding performance in specific niche categories, and can therefore be considered as benchmarks and representatives of their respective tracks. With the rapid development of AI technology, various niche markets are now facing unprecedented opportunities. Continuously identifying and focusing on these niche stars is an effective strategy for discovering and seizing the lead of niche AI application markets. Not only does it represent the gradual recognition of its respective AI application type by the market, but it may also indicate that the track is at the initial stage of explosive growth.

These applications have achieved outstanding performance in their respective AI application types, not only successfully making it onto the list, but also becoming ideal subjects for trend research on AI application types and potential breakthrough applications.

360AI Search: The only AI search application to enter the app-based list. Although search scenarios are more likely to occur on the Web, such as Meita AI boasting over 9 million monthly active users on the Web, app-based search needs still exist and are growing in scale. With the entry of AI-enabled smartphones into the market and their gradual popularization, we have reason to believe that app-based search needs and application scenarios will see a surge. This not only provides huge market opportunities for 360AI Search and other similar applications, but also indicates the huge potential of the mobile search market.

AI translation tools: In the first half of 2024, the overall growth rate of AI translation applications reached 85.50%, with two AI translation applications successfully entering the list on both the app-based and Web-based lists. They are Youdao Translate and Caiyun Xiaoyi.

AI Music Academy: The only AI music application to enter the list, with growth not being particularly significant, but maintaining a monthly active user scale of 700,000 on the app-based platform. AI Music Academy is an advanced music teaching software that provides multiple learning paths and course options for musical instrument enthusiasts. The platform uses AI technology to realistically simulate the one-on-one teaching experience of various musical instruments such as guitars, ukuleles, pianos, and vocal music, and adopts audio recognition and AI interactive video teaching technology to achieve intelligent evaluation and In comparison to MiniMax’s Talkie and Starry Night, the development of Hailu AI has been somewhat slower, currently just surpassing the 1 million scale.

The overall growth of AI design applications has been slow, and there are no applications with more than 10 million users. The competition is fierce. Canva, a leading AI design application, has 3 million monthly active users, but its monthly compound growth rate was only 4.96% in the past six months. For the development of AI design applications, it is currently mainly focused on graphic design, but due to technical limitations, low market acceptance, limited application scenarios, talent and cost issues, it has encountered a bottleneck, including problems such as not accurately reflecting design intentions and generating images with styles that do not match expectations.

The user activity of AI image editing and generation applications is showing a downward trend. Besides the 279.72 thousand monthly active users of Miaoya Camera, the monthly active users of other applications are all below 500,000.

AI image technology has become a popular track in the AI application industry, attracting many innovative enterprises to enter the field. However, AI image editing and generation technology still faces a series of technical bottlenecks, including precise control of generated image details, maintenance of image quality consistency, and realism of generated results. At the same time, AI chatbot applications are moving towards multi-modal interaction and platform integration, with their functions becoming increasingly rich, forming a powerful market suction effect. This trend poses new challenges to vertical applications focused on AI image editing and generation, requiring them to explore and optimize their differentiated services and technological innovation at a deeper level.