Beyond the Hype: General AI Surges as Image and Writing Tools Face a 2025 Reality Check

According to Similarweb, the generative AI market continues to expand unevenly toward the end of 2025, with broad, general-purpose chat services gaining ground while image generation and text-focused tools lose significant traffic, and voice-based solutions and automation platforms strengthening their positions.

Over the past 12 weeks, the General segment grew by 6%, while Design & Image Generation declined by 22%, Writing & Content fell by 18%, EdTech AI slipped by 2%, and Customer Support & Experience dropped by 1%. Within the general-purpose segment, Gemini posted the strongest growth at +65%, followed by Meta’s products at +38%, Claude at +19%, and Perplexity at +13%, with OpenAI remaining in positive territory at +6%.

Developer-focused tools showed notable activity, with Base44 surging by 172%, Cursor down 7% and V0 down 56%, contributing to a net 9% rise for the DevOps & Code Completion category over the period. In creative domains, Voice Generation & Editing grew 27% with ElevenLabs up 55%, while music generation declined 4%.

Demand for low-code and no-code automation rose 17%, with n8n climbing 75%, and traditional sectors further shifting as digital freelance platforms fell 8% year over year, Traditional EdTech slipped 10%, and Traditional Search declined 3%, alongside AI-driven design services which rose 20%.