September AI Tool Decline Ranking: Who's Falling?

The ebb in September had two completely different forms, and mixing them up would lead to wrong conclusions.

One is a gradual decline. Microsoft Copilot was still around 130 million from April to May. Starting in June, it went down for four consecutive months, falling to 64.37 million in September, a drop of -51.1% over five months. This curve resembles a natural product decline with no unexpected incidents.

Another is a cliff drop. Kimi’s monthly active users stood at 51.24 million in August, then plummeted to 25.62 million in September, a month-on-month decrease of 50.0%. For the first 11 months, its user numbers fluctuated between 25 million and 60 million, and it even hit a peak of 60.10 million in July. Such a steep drop is unlikely to be a natural fluctuation.

As for general AI products, one is experiencing a gradual ebb, while the other is plummeting off a cliff. The two tables below show the decline list and net reduction list respectively, revealing the scale of each of these two patterns.

15 AI Tools with the Largest Drop in September Among Those with Over 1 Million Monthly Visits in August

Topping the list, Pollo AI saw a month-on-month drop of 54.2%, falling from 8.38 million to 3.84 million.

Kimi ranks second, with a month-on-month decrease of 50.0%. Further down the list, Kimi sees a 50.0% drop, followed by Grokipedia at -47.3%, FlowUs at -45.5%, Rocket.new at -40.2%, and Silicon-based Flow at -34.9% — these are all the biggest decliners in the million-user tier.

In the list, TraeWork and TraeCode have exactly the same decline rate because they are two product lines under the same domain trae.cn, and there is only one data source from the domain in the platform, so this figure should only be counted once.

Top 15 Tools with the Largest Net Access Volume Drop in September

This ranking on this list is completely different from the previous one because it is based on absolute values.

Topping the list, Kimi ranks second (-50.0%) on the decline chart, but its net loss of -25,622,217 is the largest among all tools—a halving of absolute losses, exceeding the combined losses of over a dozen tools that saw drops of 30 to 40 percent each.

Places 4 to 8 are another group: Quark (-7.3%, net decrease -5,775,571), Manus (-21.9%, net decrease -5,464,476), Remove.bg (-8.6%, net decrease -5,122,262), Pollo AI (-54.2%, net decrease -4,545,533), and Grok (-2.0%, net decrease -4,132,330). None of the declines reached a halving, but all were in the tens of millions range, and the total is equally substantial when added up.

After the 9th place, the net loss is around 3 million each, with the decline ranging from -3.3% to -23.7%. For the same absolute loss of 3 million, the decline rates differ by several times. Tools with a larger volume are actually less sensitive to monthly fluctuations.

Microsoft Copilot ranks second on this list with a net decrease of -9,122,820. However, its decline pattern is completely different from the top-ranked one—it dropped by -51.1% over five months, showing a continuous downward trend rather than a sudden drop in a single month.

Pollo AI's official website was still being updated normally in mid-September; it is not shutting down.

NotebookLM saw a month-on-month decrease of 23.7%. This figure is calculated after revising the domainbasis. The lack of suffixes in the domain names stored in the station led to the previously captured volume being on the low side, and the current figure of 9.82 million is accurate.

As for why Kimi halved, there's no explanation for now. The domain name has always been its own, with no migration or redirection, and the data is complete. We just have to wait until next month.

Products like Kimi and Manus share one common feature: they require users to learn nothing at all.

It's ready to use right out of the box with no entry barriers, so it grows the fastest when the trend is up and drops the fastest when the trend fades.

Conversely, Turnitin rose by 61.9%, Gradescope by 288.5%, and Quizlet by 70.8%. All of these require users to come with specific tasks—submitting assignments, checking for plagiarism, and searching for answers. The demand is rigid and will not disappear just because the trial period ends.

Cursor, another tool of the same type, saw a drop of 4.6%, Ollama a decline of 11.7%, and Replit a fall of 8.8%. This indicates that the same pattern is at play in programming tools.

The image category is generally declining, while the video category is generally rising.

The number of tools is almost the same, with one seeing a net decrease and the other a net increase.

The biggest drops are seen in Magnific (-3.3%), SeaArt AI (-15.7%), and Meshy AI (-11.9%). All three started with "AI image generation" as their core business, and their business models rely heavily on users paying for the number of generations.

Gaining ground are tools like Higgsfield (+26.2%), Runway (+14.2%), and Suno (+3.8%) that focus on video and music creation.

On the same creative chain, static images are declining while dynamic content is growing.

See the full list and screenshots of each tool on the site: https://panovast.com/en

To repeat one last time: all figures are estimates from third-party platforms. Focus on the trends and structures, and do not use them for precise judgments. If you find any figure obviously incorrect, please provide feedback on our official site. We conduct a full review of the domainbasis every month.