I couldn’t open Reddit, check Slack, or scroll through Twitter without someone dropping a link to yet another artificial intelligence (AI) tool.
“Have you tried this?” “It just dropped.” “It writes blog posts in your voice.” “It edits videos while you sleep.”
That’s not just anecdotal. The number of AI tool users is projected to reach 1.2 billion by 2031, and the market itself is expected to grow to $1.01 trillion, with an annual growth rate (CAGR 2025-2031) of 26.60%.
So, at some point, I stopped bookmarking and started tracking.
This list is the result: 40 of the most popular AI tools in 2025, pulled from search trends, G2 reviews, forum threads, and yes, my own ever-growing list of tools I’ve tested, used, or watched explode online.
Some are generative AI software category leaders. Some are niche but wildly loved. All of them are showing up again and again in the places where real AI conversations are happening.
If you want to see what people are actually using, start with the table below, or keep scrolling to explore by category.
10 most popular AI tools in 2025: At a glance
| AI tool | Category | Free or paid | Popularity signal |
| Canva | Image generation and design | Freemium | 16B+ uses since Magic Studio’s 2023 debut |
| ChatGPT | Conversational AI | Freemium | 87.5 million monthly traffic volume |
| Fathom | Meeting assistant | Freemium | Rated 5/5 on G2 with 5K+ reviews |
| Gemini | Multimodal AI | Freemium | 2.47% global AI chatbot market share |
| GitHub Copilot | Coding assistant | Freemium | 1.3M paid subscribers reported in 2024 |
| Grammarly | Writing assistant | Freemium | Rated 4.7/5 with over 11K reviews |
| Murf.ai | Voice generation | Freemium | Rated 4.7/5 on G2 with over 1.3K reviews |
| Notion | Productivity and knowledge base | Freemium | Over 100M users |
| Synthesia | Video generation and editing | Paid | Chosen by 60% of Fortune 100 |
| Zapier | Automation | Freemium | Hit $310M revenue in 2024 |
*This list pulls from search trends, G2 reviews, forum discussions, and tools I’ve personally tested. Web traffic data and popularity signals are backed by the sources listed at the end of this article.
Best AI tools I keep coming back to
If I’m being honest, building a “most popular AI tools” list in 2025 is a bit like trying to hit a moving target. What’s hot this month might fade away next month. So instead of ranking every tool definitively, I pulled together something more grounded, a snapshot of what people are actually using, sharing, and talking about right now.
The 40 tools that made this article passed a few key checks:
- G2 reviews and Grid Report leaders (top-right quadrant, thousands of reviews)
- Real usage data (monthly active users, install base, traffic)
- Search and community buzz (Reddit threads, Google Trends, “just found this” tweets)
- A mix of freemium and paid tools (because popularity ≠ free)
Out of those 40, many are still evolving: adding features, refining models, expanding into more use cases. But a few have already pulled ahead, carving out a clear lead in their category.
How to choose the right AI tool for your workflow
Not every AI application is built for your exact use case, and that’s the point. Here’s a quick checklist to help you narrow things down:
- What do you actually need help with?
Writing? Design? Scheduling? Customer support? Start there. - Is the tool built for solo use or team workflows?
Some tools shine for individuals, others are better for cross-functional teams. - Does it integrate with the tools you already use?
Look for plug-and-play integrations with Google Workspace, Slack, Notion, Zapier, etc. - How flexible is the tool?
Can you customize prompts, fine-tune outputs, or build agents that take real action? - Can you test it before committing?
A good free trial (or freemium tier) goes a long way in understanding real value. - Are people actually using it the way you plan to?
Look for real-world examples, user feedback, and case studies that match your use case.
The 10 tools below stand out. They lead their categories (G2 Grid Report data supports this), show up in real workflows, and in most cases, I’ve used them myself. Here’s what makes each one worth a closer look.
1. Canva: Best for AI image generation
- User count: Over 220 million active users
- Monthly visits: Approximately 803.96 million visits
- G2 rating: 4.7/5 (4,500+ reviews)
Canva app features
- AI-driven design tools in Magic Studio, including Magic Design and Magic Write
- Extensive library of templates and stock assets
- Cross-platform accessibility on web and mobile
Founded in 2013, Canva has transformed from a simple graphic design tool into a comprehensive AI-powered design platform. Its AI features are now packaged under Magic Studio, a suite that includes tools like Magic Design, Magic Write, and Magic Edit, enabling users to generate and customize designs effortlessly.
With a user base of over 220 million monthly active users and a valuation of $49 billion, Canva is a dominant force in the design industry. The platform’s intuitive interface and robust AI capabilities make it a go-to solution for individuals and businesses aiming to create professional-quality visuals without the steep learning curve.
Source: ElectroIQ
2. ChatGPT: Best for versatile AI chat interactions
- User count: Over 400 million weekly active users
- Monthly visits: Approximately 4.46 billion visits
- G2 rating: 4.7/5 (770+ reviews)
OpenAI ChatGPT features
- Custom GPTs with memory and personalization
- Multimodal input: text, image, and voice
- Integration with tools like DALL·E and Code Interpreter
Launched in late 2022, ChatGPT has become the go-to AI assistant for everything from writing and coding to brainstorming and support. It’s used by over 400 million active users each week and draws billions of visits per month, making it the most visited AI tool on the internet.
With a reported valuation of $300 billion and a market share of 59.90% in the US, ChatGPT dominates the AI chatbot category by a wide margin.
At the core of the platform is OpenAI’s suite of flagship models, including GPT-4.1 for complex tasks, GPT-4o for speed and flexibility, GPT-4o Audio for voice input, and ChatGPT-4o, the model running in the app today. Together, they power the tool’s growing range of capabilities and keep it at the center of how millions of people interact with AI.
Source: FirstPageSage
With a 69% adoption rate, chatbots and virtual assistants are the most common entry point for AI in today’s tech stacks.
Source: G2
3. Fathom: Best for AI meeting assistance
- User count: Used at over 180,000 companies
- Monthly visits: Approximately 2.2 million monthly visits
- G2 rating: 5/5 (5,200+ reviews)
Fathom software features
- Automatic recording, transcription, and summarization of meetings
- Integration with Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams
- End-to-end encryption, HIPAA compliant, SOC2 audited
Fathom is one of those tools that instantly makes sense once you use it. Launched in 2020, it handles the part of meetings everyone dreads: taking notes, tracking action items, and remembering what was said (all automatically). It records, transcribes, and summarizes calls in real time, and works seamlessly with Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams.
It’s already being used at over 180,000 companies, and it’s easy to see why. The company has raised $21.8 million to date, with a $17 million Series A round in September 2024. According to the company, over the last few years, their revenue has grown 90x and usage is up 20x, clear signs that Fathom is becoming an important part of how teams run meetings.
Fathom website traffic demographics, Source: Similarweb
4. Gemini: Best for advanced LLM capabilities
- User count: 350 million monthly active users
- Monthly visits: Approximately 2.34 million visits
- G2 rating: 4.4/5 (170+ reviews)
Google Gemini AI features
- Multimodal capabilities: processes text, images, audio, and video
- Integration across Google Workspace (Docs, Gmail, Sheets, etc.)
- Personal context awareness using data from Gmail, Drive, and more
Originally launched in 2023 as Google Bard, Gemini is now a central part of the company’s long-term AI strategy. It powers features across Google Workspace and handles around 350 million monthly users. In March 2025, the Gemini mobile app hit 1.3 million downloads in the U.S. alone, signaling fast adoption beyond the browser.
What makes Gemini stand out is how tightly it integrates with your Google data, offering context-aware replies that draw from Gmail, Drive, and Docs. It’s also fully multimodal, capable of taking in and responding to text, images, video, and audio.
Under the hood, it runs on a mix of models:
- Gemini 2.5 Pro: Best for accuracy, analysis, and reasoning
- Gemini 2.5 Flash: Optimized for fast, high-volume tasks
- Gemini 2.0 Flash: The newest model, built for agent-style workflows with improved latency and file handling
Source: MageComp
5. GitHub Copilot: Best for AI coding assistance
- User count: Over 15 million developers
- Monthly visits: Approximately 37 million
- G2 rating: 4.5/5 (140+ reviews)
GitHub Copilot features
- Real-time code suggestions across multiple programming languages
- Seamless integration with popular integrated development environments (IDEs) like Visual Studio Code, JetBrains, and Neovim
- Supports natural language prompts for code generation
Launched in 2021, GitHub Copilot has quickly become a go-to tool for developers looking to code faster and with less friction. Used by more than 15 million developers, it integrates directly into popular IDEs to offer real-time code suggestions and full-function autocompletions based on natural language prompts.
According to GitHub, 73% of developers said Copilot helped them stay in flow, and 87% said it reduced the mental effort of repetitive coding tasks.
Backed by Microsoft and powered by OpenAI’s Codex models, Copilot continues to define what AI-powered development looks like.
Source: Future Processing
6. Grammarly: Best for AI writing assistance
- User count: Over 30 million daily users
- Monthly visits: Approximately 60 million monthly visits
- G2 rating: 4.7/5 (11,400+ reviews)
Grammarly features
- AI writing assistance across tone, clarity, and structure
- Full-sentence rewrites, grammar fixes, and autocomplete
- Works across web, desktop, mobile, and email
Grammarly has been helping people write better since 2009, and its AI tools have taken it far beyond grammar correction. It now serves over 30 million users and 70,000 professional teams worldwide, supporting everything from student essays to business communications.
Its AI features can rewrite paragraphs, adjust tone, and suggest clearer phrasing as you type across tools like Docs and Gmail. The GrammarlyGO add-on also lets you generate text with prompts, speeding up writing tasks without switching tabs.
With a $13 billion valuation, Grammarly remains one of the most trusted names in AI-powered writing.
Source: ElectroIQ
7. Murf.ai: Best for AI voice generation
- User count: Over 6 million users across 195 countries
- Monthly visits: Approximately 1.49M monthly visits
- G2 rating: 4.7/5 (1,380+ reviews)
Murf.ai key features
- 120+ ultra-realistic AI voices across 20+ languages
- Voice customization: pitch, speed, emphasis, and pronunciation
- Voice cloning capabilities for personalized voiceovers
Founded in 2020 by IIT-Kharagpur alumni, Murf.ai has become a go-to for anyone who needs professional voiceovers without dealing with studio recording. It’s especially popular among creators in e-learning, podcasting, and advertising, thanks to its growing library of ultra-realistic voices and fine-tuned customization features.
In the past year alone, Murf synthesized over 1 million voiceover projects and grew its ARR 22x, all while operating with a lean team and a $2.4 million valuation as of 2024. It’s the kind of tool that quietly powers a lot more content than you’d expect, and it’s only getting better.
Murf.ai revenue, Source: GetLatka
8. Notion: Best for AI-powered productivity
- User count: Over 100 million users
- Monthly visits: Approximately 114.44 million visits
- G2 rating: 4.7/5 (6,740+ reviews)
Notion app features
- AI-powered writing assistance and content summarization
- Supports natural language prompts for content generation
- Enhances productivity with smart suggestions and automation
Notion AI launched in 2023 as an upgrade to the workspace many teams already relied on, and it’s quickly become one of the most used AI writing and organization tools on the internet. Instead of bolting on a chatbot, Notion baked AI directly into its platform, letting users generate and edit content without ever leaving their docs, wikis, or to-do lists.
It’s now used by more than 100 million people. With smart suggestions, instant summaries, and solid prompt handling, it turns Notion into a one-stop productivity hub. As of 2025, Notion is valued at around $10 billion, with its AI capabilities playing a major role in that growth.
Source: TapTwice Digital
9. Synthesia: Best for AI video generation
- User count: Over 60,000 businesses
- Monthly visits: Approximately 3.29 million visits
- G2 rating: 4.7/5 (2,100+ reviews)
Synthesia AI video generator features
- Text-to-video creation with AI avatars
- Supports over 140 languages and accents
- Integration with platforms like content management systems (CMS) and learning management systems (LMS)
Synthesia makes it easy to create polished videos without cameras, microphones, or editing software. Instead, you type a script and choose an avatar, and the platform generates a clean, on-brand video in minutes.
Launched in 2017, it’s now used by over 60,000 companies, including more than half of the Fortune 100, for training, marketing, and internal communications. In early 2025, it raised $180 million at a $2.1 billion valuation, solidifying Synthesia’s position as the go-to platform for fast, scalable video creation.
Source: ElectroIQ
10. Zapier: Best for AI workflow automation
- User count: Around 3 million users
- Monthly visits: Approximately 11 million monthly visits
- G2 rating: 4.5/5 (1,340+ reviews)
Zapier AI features
- Connects AI tools to around 8,000 apps to automate tasks
- AI Copilot for building workflows using natural language
- AI Agents for creating custom assistants across apps
Zapier has been the go-to tool for no-code automation since 2011. It now supports over 100,000 paying customers and more than 3 million users in total. Its AI suite helps connect models like ChatGPT and Claude, generate emails and summaries with prompts, build agents that act on your data, or spin up chatbots that capture leads, all inside the same workflow.
Valued at $5 billion, Zapier continues to be the easiest way to plug AI into your everyday tools.
Source: TapTwice Digital
Other AI tools gathering hype
Not every tool here is a household name like ChatGPT or Canva, but quite a few are getting there. From breakout hits like Claude, CapCut, and Adobe Firefly to sleeper favorites like Runway, DeepL, and QuillBot, these tools are quickly making their mark across workflows, communities, and creator circles.
Some are exploding on social media, others are gaining traction through word of mouth and real product value, and a few are already huge but haven’t gotten the spotlight they deserve yet. This section rounds up 30 tools that are either rising fast or already wildly popular in their niche.
Traffic insights for web apps were pulled from Semrush and Ahrefs (in the month of May 2025), and any additional data points are sourced in the callout at the end of this article.
| AI tool | Category | Free or paid | Popularity signal |
| Adobe Firefly | Image generation | Freemium | Generated 22B+ assets under 2 years |
| CapCut | Video editing | Freemium | Rated 4.8/5 on App Store with over 13.7K reviews |
| Character.ai | Conversational AI | Freemium | 20M active users in January 2025 |
| Claude | Conversational AI | Freemium | 18.9M monthly active users globally |
| ClickUp | Project management | AI features in the paid plan | Rated 4.7/5 on G2 with over 10K reviews |
| Copy.ai | Writing assistant | Freemium | 17M+ users |
| Cursor | Coding assistant | Freemium | Fastest SaaS company to reach $100M in ARR |
| DeepL | Translation | Freemium | 82% of LSCs use DeepL |
| DeepSeek | Conversational AI | Freemium | Downloaded 75 million times since launch |
| Descript | Video editing | Freemium | Rated 4.6/5 on G2 with over 700 reviews |
| ElevenLabs | Voice generation | Freemium | 4.2M monthly traffic volume |
| Filmora | Video editing | Free trial and paid plans | 100M+ users spanning 150 countries |
| Grok | Conversational AI | Freemium | 35.1M monthly active Grok users |
| HeyGen | Video generation | Freemium | Rated 4.8/5 on G2 with over 800 reviews |
| InVideo | Video editing | Freemium | 4M monthly active users in 2024 |
| Jasper | Writing assistant | Free trial and paid plans | Rated 4.7/5 on G2 with over 1.2K reviews |
| Leonardo | Image generation | Freemium | Over 15M creator community |
| Luma AI | 3D generation | Freemium | 418K monthly traffic volume |
| Midjourney | Image generation | Paid | Its Discord community has 21M+ members |
| OpusClip | Video editing | Freemium | Gained 5M users in 7 months |
| Otter.ai | Meeting assistant | Freemium | Transcribed 1B+ meetings |
| Perplexity | Conversational AI | Freemium | Serving 169M+ queries per month |
| QuillBot | Writing assistant | Freemium | 59.94M monthly visits |
| Remove.bg | Image editing | Freemium | 76.23M monthly visits |
| Replit | Coding assistant | Freemium | Over 20M active users |
| Runway | Video generation and editing | Freemium | 12.13M monthly visits |
| Rytr | Writing assistant | Freemium | Rated 4.7/5 on G2 with over 800 reviews |
| Simplified | Content generation | Freemium | Rated 4.6/5 on G2 with 4.9K+ reviews |
| Wordtune | Writing assistant | Freemium | Around 1.52M monthly visits |
| Writesonic | Content generation | Free trial and paid plans | Rated 4.7/5 on G2 with over 2K reviews |
Bonus AI tool: G2 Monty
This one’s a personal favorite — and yes, a little biased. Monty is G2’s AI assistant that helps you find the right tools, understand G2’s offerings, get support, or even write a review.
I’ve been using it since beta, and it makes navigating G2 a lot faster. If you’re lost in tabs or just want a smarter way to explore software, Monty’s worth chatting with.
All in on AI
If there’s one thing this list proves, it’s that AI isn’t something to bookmark for later anymore. These tools are being used right now by designers, marketers, developers, founders, and pretty much anyone trying to move faster or work smarter.
Whether you’re testing out a writing assistant or finally giving that AI video tool your teammate keeps raving about a spin, the best part is how accessible everything’s become. You don’t need a data science degree. You just need a use case or a little curiosity.
This isn’t a definitive ranking or a greatest-hits playlist. It’s a snapshot of the tools shaping workflows and conversations in 2025, and maybe even changing how we think about work.
If something here caught your eye, run with it. Try one. Break a few things. That’s exactly how the rest of us are figuring it out, too.
Want to go deeper? Check out this listicle on the nine best generative AI tools for a thorough look at platforms delivering real value across writing, coding, design, and more.
Leave a Reply