The halo of DeepSeek has faded, and its appeal is no longer what it used to be, as can be seen from its downloads.QuestMobile's "AI Application Value List for the Second Quarter of 2025" shows that the halo of DeepSeek, the champion in the first quarter, faded, and its average monthly downloads plummeted from an astonishing 81.113 million in the first quarter to 22.589 million, a drop of as much as 72.2%.

Doubao has become the leader in terms of downloads. AI smart assistant applications such as Kimi, Zhipu, Wen Xiaoyan, and Tongyi have collectively declined in terms of monthly activity, with Keling’s monthly activity falling by more than 16%.

New vertical scenarios have emerged as dark horses. In the field of "AI+office", ima's monthly activity increased by 190.2% month-on-month, and 360 Library's monthly activity increased by 134.5% month-on-month; in the field of "AI+education", Byte's Doubao Aixue's monthly activity was 7.562 million, while Zuoyebang's Kuaidui AI's monthly activity was as high as 10.444 million.

The above list is based on two core indicators: average monthly downloads and monthly active users (MAU), revealing the new changes in the "midfield battle" of AI applications.

Regarding DeepSeek’s plunge, relevant experts gave the reasons:

1. The label of “high cost performance” is being torn off bit by bit by the market, further exacerbating the loss of traffic. Major manufacturers such as Alibaba, Byte, and Baidu have launched similar models with lower API prices.

2. After being accessed by other applications, users are diverted.

3. It is a general-purpose intelligent question and answer product that does not deeply bind users in vertical scenarios such as office, study, and entertainment, which also leads to its reduced user appeal.

4. The DeepSeek-R2 model, which had high hopes, was originally scheduled to be released in early May, but it was still missing as of mid-July, causing the market to question its technology iteration capabilities.

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