Americans splurge on European AI apps
Tech talent is also returning to Europe.
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- Eleven of the top 50 US consumer AI apps by monthly revenue are European or have major European roots.
- Americans who pay for AI apps spend most on coding, productivity, and creative tools.
- The highest-spending 10% of users generate about half of observed US consumer AI app spending.
- European AI investment hit $21.8 billion, and more tech workers moved from the US to the EU in 2025.
Key Takeaways by nexos.ai, reviewed by Cybernews staff.
About one-fifth of AI consumer apps that generate the most monthly revenue in the United States are European or have a significant European footprint.
Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), a US-based venture capital firm, has released the 7th edition of its Top 100 AI Consumer Apps ranking, which, for the first time, also accounts for observed spending on US consumer cards.
The report reveals that only a small share of Americans pay for AI apps, but those who do are willing to splurge, especially for coding, productivity, and creative tools. The top 10% of spenders account for roughly half of all observed spending.
The list of the top 50 consumer AI apps by monthly revenue is dominated by products from American tech companies, including OpenAI, Anthropic, and Canva.
However, 11 of these top cash-generating AI apps are European or have roots on the continent, which is often criticized for a lack of innovation and overregulation, as noted by Priit Pavelson, an Estonian founder and CEO of Allies.
These apps are Superhuman (Ukraine), Loveable (Sweden), Eleven Labs (UK/Poland), Reface (Ukraine), Zeely (Ukraine), JustDone (Cyprus), Photoroom (France), Hugging Face (France/US), n8n (Germany), FaceApp (Cyprus), and Synthesia (UK).
While some of these companies are currently headquartered in the US, they have a significant European footprint.
Ukrainian entrepreneurs Max Lytvyn, Oleksii Shevchenko, and Dmytro Lide founded the AI writing assistant Grammarly in Kyiv in 2009. The company rebranded to Superhuman in 2025 after acquiring an email efficiency tool with the same name.
Eleven Labs, an AI voice generation platform, was founded by Polish entrepreneurs Piotr Dąbkowski and Mateusz Staniszewski in the UK in 2022. The now-global company is headquartered in New York, but its R&D hub is located in Warsaw.
The rise of European tech
The findings run counter to a common criticism that European companies cannot compete with Silicon Valley in offering attractive consumer products, especially in AI, because the continent hosts only one frontier AI lab, the France-based Mistral.
Europe produces 1.5 million STEM graduates per year, more than double the US, and accounts for 19.2% of the world's top-10% most-cited papers.
However, approximately 40% of European deep tech unicorn founders are based in the US, having either relocated after founding their company or moved before starting it, according to a 2026 report.
Rising geopolitical tensions and changes in US policy under the Donald Trump administration may help make European tech great again.
European governments are increasingly adopting or exploring local alternatives to US tech, focusing on open-source software, as part of the digital sovereignty movement.
The Trump administration’s decision to tighten scrutiny of H-1B visa applications, which previously served as the main gateway for highly skilled tech workers, resulted in a significant drop in the hiring of foreign talent.
Meanwhile, investments in the European AI sector reached a record $21.8 billion, up 58% from 2024.
There are also early signs that the long-term trend of talent drain may be reversed. In 2025, more tech workers moved from the US to the EU than vice versa, with France, the UK, and Switzerland attracting the most talent.
