DeepSeek, once a leading Chinese LLM player, experienced a sharp 72% drop in average monthly chatbot downloads in Q2 2025, falling to 22.6 million.
While the chatbot's active users also dipped by 9%, the decline reflects a wider shift in user behavior: consumers are now favoring task-specific AI applications, in areas like education, productivity, and finance, over general-purpose chatbot interfaces.
This trend echoes the broader evolution of AI from novelty-based chat to embedded utilities within real-world workflows. Industry analysts note that the fall signals an inflection point for Chinese AI developers, who must pivot toward more verticalized, outcome-driven AI products
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