Young adults make up 40% of mobile users worldwide in today’s tech industry. So, the success or failure of an app in the market may depend on offering useful or fun solutions for their daily lives. New research has revealed the top apps that are generating the most interest among Gen Z in 2024.

The data provided by the analysis platform Appfigures (via TechCrunch) provides a comprehensive understanding of the current state of the app market among young adults, specifically those aged between 18 and 24. Due to regulatory restrictions, the platform is unable to provide a comprehensive overview with additional audiences, as it is not permitted to collect data on users under the age of 18. In addition, the available data applies to the United States market until October 2024.

It is important to keep in mind that the data corresponds to new apps downloaded by users who have never downloaded them before. Lastly, the platform brings together data from Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android users.

Temu and TikTok top the list of most popular apps of 2024 among Gen Z

According to the report, Temu leads the list of most popular apps among Gen Z in 2024. The e-commerce platform boasts 41.98 million new downloads between January and October. Its strategy based on low prices, a wide variety of products, and gamification is effective among young adults. Shein, probably its most direct rival, took home 14.68 million new downloads during the same period.

The second most popular app among the Gen Z public is TikTok. The short-form video platform achieved around 33.23 million new downloads this year. Quick-consumption content has proven to be especially effective among the niche population studied. Other large platforms, such as Instagram and YouTube, have tried to grab part of this market. Interestingly, the data says that young adults use TikTok’s search engine more than Google’s.

Speaking of YouTube, the Google-owned video platform continues to hold strong in the market. The app achieved 14.03 million new downloads among young adults through October. Perhaps this strong position is what’s leading the company to increase prices and remove grandfathered offers that have remained unmovable for years.

Interest in short drama apps rises significantly

A growing niche among young adults is that of short drama apps. In this segment, ShortMax is the dominant app with around 10 million downloads this 2024. The platform boasts a catalog of around 1,000 short films in all kinds of genres. Again, a type of format that makes content more easily “digestible” seems to be especially effective among Gen Z.

Social and messaging platforms occupy a large part of the interest among young adults. In fact, Meta apps have a significant presence in the top 2024 popularity list for Gen Z. Between January and October, Threads achieved 32.32 million new downloads. The list also includes WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, and Messenger, with approximately 28.42 million, 26.29 million, 20.58 million, and 17.63 million downloads, respectively.

Within this niche, Facebook’s popularity appears to be rising. For years, Mark Zuckerberg’s original social network took on a reputation for being “old-fashioned,” driving young people to other platforms. Recently, Facebook received a redesign in addition to several new features. It’s possible that this update is re-attracting this particular niche.

On the other hand, Threads is the leader in downloads among Meta apps because the data considers only new downloads, not general downloads. Anyway, it’s still commendable and positive news for a platform that was born as an alternative to X.

Google continues to be ever-present in the industry

Google apps continue to be widely used by the public. The services of the Mountain View giant are useful for multiple segments, be it entertainment, education, or even cloud storage. The Google app obtained around 17.65 million new downloads throughout 2024. Chrome, Meet, Drive, and Photos follow with 10.19 million, 9.63 million, 7.22 million, and 6.79 million new installations, respectively.

It’s noteworthy that many of the apps mentioned above come pre-installed on Android devices. Therefore, it’s possible that the data only reflects new downloads on iOS devices. This would make the download figures even more impressive for Google apps.

In today’s tech industry, AI cannot be left out of a top list of popular apps. In line with this, the ChatGPT app achieved around 24.63 million new installations. This can be easily justified in light of the demographic under study. Gen Z is about to start college, and ChatGPT has gained immense popularity as a “study assistant.” According to research, around 43% of American students have turned to ChatGPT or AI-powered tools for support.

Continuing with the education and artificial intelligence segment, Gauth: AI study companion appears on the charts with around 8.37 million new installs by October 2024. Gauth is an app that draws on the power of LLMs to interpret and solve problems in multiple fields, such as math, physics, biology, chemistry, and more. The app is not exactly new, as it has been available since 2021. However, for some reason, its popularity has skyrocketed since January of this year. In fact, in April, it was the second most downloaded educational app on iOS in the United States.

Other social apps that are most popular among Gen Z for 2024

The popularity of social apps among young adults stems from their ability to share content with both loved ones and the public. Therefore, it makes sense that apps that are specifically designed to generate such content would also reap benefits. In line with that, CapCut, a video editing app, enters the list with 21.72 million new downloads. CapCut is an app from ByteDance, the parent company of TikTok. So, its popularity could be due to both the amount of useful editing tools it offers and its link with the short video platform.

ByteDance appears again toward the top of the most popular apps among Gen Z in 2024. The Chinese company has developed Lemon8, an app that serves as an alternative to Instagram. Just like Threads does with X, Lemon8 copies the format and multiple features of its direct rival. It seems that the strategy is working for the brand. The app has garnered a respectable 7.7 million new downloads during 2024. Notably, Lemon8 is not yet available worldwide, making the figure even better for ByteDance.

The list of the most popular social apps also includes Snapchat, Telegram, Pinterest, Reddit, and X. These achieved about 19.16, 13.12 million, 8.23 ​​million, 8.06 million, and 7.58 million new installs, respectively.

Streaming and payment services are not left out

Among Gen Z, content streaming apps are also quite important. Netflix stands out as the most popular streaming service among young adults in 2024 with 15.67 million new downloads. Other direct rivals, such as Prime Video and Disney+, follow with about 12.86 million and 11.68 million downloads, respectively. The market also has room for other names such as Max, Peacock, and Tubi, which each achieved about 7 million new installs in 2024.

Streaming services are not limited to video, as they also revolve around music. Unsurprisingly, Spotify is the most popular app in this segment among Gen Z. The app achieved about 10.45 million new downloads between January and October 2024 in the US.

Payment apps are also essential among young adults. In this niche, PayPal dominated in 2024 with about 13.92 million new downloads. Venmo and Cash App follow with about 7.8 million and 6.9 million new downloads, respectively.

This year’s action RPG Stellar Blade has been a solid win for Sony as a PlayStation 5 exclusive. Developer Shift Up revealed in a recent quarterly earnings that sales “have remained steady even as the initial surge has calmed” following its spring launch. But there may be a second boost coming for the game, because the studio is planning a PC port of Stellar Blade some time next year.

“Given recent trends like Steam’s growing presence in the AAA games market and the global success of Black Myth: Wukong, we are expecting the PC version to perform even better than the console version,” the Korean company when asked about their PC plans during the presentation.

The title referenced, Black Myth: Wukong, was able to for concurrent players in a single-player game on Steam when it launched on the platform in August. That’s a lofty goal for any game to reach, so we’ll have to see how successful Shift Up can be in reaching an international audience on PC.

Agentic AI continues to grow as enterprises explore its potential. However, there can be pitfalls when building an AI agent workflow. 

May Habib, co-founder and CEO of full-stack AI platform Writer, said there are four things enterprises should consider when thinking about autonomous AI and the automated workflows that AI agents enable. 

“If you don’t focus on the capabilities that are right for you to create self-sufficiency, you’ll never get to a generative AI program that is scaling,” Habib said. 

For Habib, enterprises need to think about these four things when approaching AI workflows that offer value to them:

1. Understanding your use cases and the mission-critical business logic connected to those use cases
2. Knowing your data and the ability to keep the data associated with business cases fresh
3. Learn who the people that can build those use cases in the team
4. Managing the capacity of your organization to absorb change

Know your process and build a pipeline

When it comes to understanding use cases, Habib said many enterprises don’t need an AI that will tell them how to grow their business. They need AI that streamlines the work they already do and supports the processes they already have. Granted, of course, the organizations are aware of what these processes are. 

“Never forget that the nodes of the workflow are the hardest part, and not to get overly excited about the hype of agentic until you’ve nailed that workflow, because you are just moving inaccurate information or bad outputs from the system,” Habib said. 

Business processes cannot work without good data, but Habib said businesses should also build a data pipeline to bring fresh data related to the specific business use case. 

Habib said it’s equally important to know who can build the AI applications in an organization and the people who understand the workflows involved in the use cases best. She said AI does not dictate processes; the enterprises dictate the processes AI should follow. All of these culminate in the fourth tenet of effective generative AI: knowing how much change the organization can take and understanding how the actual users of the applications can find value in the technology. 

Envisioning automated AI workflows

Writer has built AI agents and other applications on its full-stack AI platform. That includes its Palmyra family of models that are specifically designed for enterprises. Its latest model release, Palmyra X 004, excels in function calling and workflow execution, which helps build AI agents. Its AI models also proved very successful for healthcare and finance use cases. Writer also offers RAG frameworks for enterprises. 

Habib said Writer wants to bring more of its vision of agentic AI — though she personally does not like the word agents because it means too many different things — that involves “AI that is able to respond to a command and then go use Writer apps, know how to interact with each other and use third-party applications.” 

Writer’s agentic AI workflow framework relies on a series of Writer apps embedded in enterprise workflows. For example, suppose a customer wants to bring a product to market. In that case, a user can tell their catalog platform running on Writer’s models and applications to pull up the specific product they want, say it needs to be posted on e-commerce sites like Amazon and Macy’s, and include other product information. The agentic workflow will then pull up the product, connect to Amazon and Macy’s APIs and post the product for sale. 

“If it has a GUI, if it has a UI, AI will become a power agent. To us, agentic AI is the ability for AI to use AI plus third-party software and be able to reason its way through,” she said. 

Moving agentic AI forward

To help facilitate the expansion of its agentic AI vision, Writer announced it raised $200 million in series C funding, bringing its valuation to $1.9 billion. 

Premiji Invest, Radical Ventures and IOCNIQ Growth led the funding round. Other investors included Salesforce Ventures, Adobe Ventures, B Capital, Citi Ventures, IBM Ventures and Workday Ventures, along with existing investors in the company. 

Habib said the new round allows it to continue building on Writer’s existing work with design partners and other customers to bring the automated workflows to life. 

Shares of Swiggy dropped 4% to 401 rupees on Wednesday as the food delivery and quick commerce startup concluded India’s second-largest IPO this year, in a closely watched debut that puts it in direct comparison with what analysts have long considered the benchmark Indian internet stock: Zomato.

The listing of the 10-year-old Bengaluru-headquartered firm marks a milestone for India’s startup ecosystem, where several firms are eyeing similarly large public offerings in the next 24 months. It also delivers a major liquidity event for Swiggy’s backers, including Prosus, whose paper returns have already reached $2 billion, as well as SoftBank and Accel. Some 5,000 employees stand to collectively reap about $1 billion in wealth.

In the run-up to the IPO, Swiggy set its valuation at $11.3 billion, a notably conservative figure given rival Zomato’s recent $29 billion market capitalization. In an interview, Swiggy co-founder and chief executive Sriharsha Majety said the firm wanted to make the offering exciting for new investors. Shares of Zomato is also down 8% this month as foreign institutional investors continue to sell billions in Indian shares.

“One of the things I am most excited about is that Swiggy itself is happening at an incredible time,” he said in a speech Wednesday. “When we look at the next one to two decades, I think it’s India’s next two decades. There’s so much economic growth in front of us. The Indian pride is at an all-time high.”

Swiggy enters public markets at a pivotal moment in India’s digital commerce landscape. While it has established itself as India’s second-largest food delivery platform with 14 million monthly active users, it trails market leader Zomato across key metrics. Its annualized gross order value of $3.3 billion in food delivery lags about 25% behind Zomato’s, according to Macquarie research.

The gap widens further in quick commerce – the rapid delivery segment promising grocery deliveries in 10 minutes. Swiggy’s Instamart service, operating through a network of over 550 dark stores, has 5.2 million monthly users compared to 7.6 million for Zomato’s Blinkit. More concerning for potential investors is that while Blinkit has reached adjusted EBITDA breakeven, Instamart remains loss-making even at the contribution margin level.

“We believe each of Swiggy’s business segments deserve to get lower target valuation multiple compared to that of Zomato’s due to poor execution in the past, which has led to widening of the market share gap,” JMFinancial analysts said Wednesday.

Yet the opportunity ahead is substantial. Morgan Stanley estimates India’s quick commerce market could reach $42 billion by 2030, representing over 18% of the country’s total ecommerce market. The sector has already grown at a blistering 77% annually since its pandemic-era inception, far outpacing traditional retail’s 14% growth.

JPMorgan reports that quick commerce platforms have already captured 56% of online grocery delivery from traditional e-commerce players.

However, competitive pressures are intensifying. Traditional retail giants like Flipkart and Reliance’s JioMart are launching their own rapid delivery services. Questions persist about the viability of the quick-commerce model beyond major urban centers, given its reliance on dense networks of small warehouses.