Generative AI: A Review of the Current State
The Hype Around Generative AI in 2024
This year has seen an explosion of hype around generative AI, with app developers clearly paying attention. The App Store charts are filled with AI-focused tools that have taken over top 10 rankings across education, productivity, and photo editing categories.
A Flood of Low-Quality Apps
While quantity doesn’t necessarily mean quality, the sheer number of AI apps has led to a saturation of low-quality offerings. Many of these apps are designed solely to cash in on the hype, quietly paywalling features behind expensive subscriptions while misrepresenting the results that users can achieve.
HUBX: A Company With Multiple Low-Quality Apps
Around half of the top 10 graphics and design apps have ‘AI’ in their name, with three of them belonging to HUBX, a company founded in 2022 based in Turkey. One of its apps, DaVinci AI, is an AI image generator with some photo editing features. However, this app falls short in several areas.
DaVinci AI: A Disappointing Experience
The images produced by DaVinci AI are low-quality and often incorrectly resized or cropped. In-app ads appear whenever you click on any link, making the user experience unpleasant. Even worse, paying for the full version comes with an ugly watermark on all downloaded edited images.
A Lackluster Performance from Other HUBX Apps
The other two high-ranking HUBX products I tested were equally disappointing: Home AI, an interior design app that produces hallucination-riddled images; and Tattoo AI, which refused to work entirely. Both apps have the same feature paywalls and review pop-up reminders as DaVinci AI.
Negative User Feedback
Despite having a surprisingly large number of five-star reviews, user feedback across social media and the App Store comments is overwhelmingly negative. A recurring complaint is that customer service is impossible to get in touch with. HUBX never responded to my requests for comment.
The Rise of AI-Focused Apps
Apps that advertise having AI features are highly attractive. According to Sensor Tower, four out of the top 10 most downloaded iOS graphics and design apps in the US so far this year have had ‘AI’ somewhere in their title. That’s two fewer than last year, but the most popular apps are booming.
Photoroom: A Promising App
One AI-focused app that stood out is Photoroom, which saw downloads increase by more than 160 percent since last year. Comparatively, Picsart AI is also a good option, ranking highly in the free ‘Photo and Video’ App Store category and providing a variety of features to quickly create online content using premade digital assets and templates.
A Noticeable Divide
There’s a noticeable divide between the iPhone and iPad charts – very few AI-focused names appear in the top 100 free or paid list for the iPad, which instead feature a more diverse range of graphic design apps like Adobe Fresco, Clip Studio Paint, and Canva. This suggests that the spammy AI app phenomenon is a mass-market one that hasn’t quite caught on with traditional photographers and illustrators.
A Shift in Creative Industries
The rise of creative AI apps has led to a shift in how people approach tasks. Custom tattoos, logo makers, and interior design are skilled services that usually require payment, but the financial barrier is being removed by AI. This raises questions about whether users want to remove the skill barrier as well.
Conclusion
In conclusion, while generative AI has taken over the App Store charts, many of these apps are low-quality and designed solely to cash in on the hype. However, there are some promising options like Photoroom and Picsart AI that provide a good user experience and achieve their advertised results. As the creative industries continue to shift, it’s essential to keep an eye on the trend and consider what role AI will play in the future.
References
- Sensor Tower: "Top 10 Most Downloaded iOS Apps"
- Photoroom: Official Website
- Picsart: Official Website
- HUBX: Official Website
