According to a report on July 22nd by Kuaikeji， the shine of DeepSeek has noticeably faded， with its appeal diminishing significantly， a trend clearly reflected in its download volumes.
The 2025 Q2 AI Application Value List， released by QuestMobile， indicates that DeepSeek， the champion of the previous quarter， experienced a drastic decline. Its monthly average downloads plummeted from an impressive 81.113 million in Q1 to just 22.589 million in Q2， a staggering drop of 72.2%.
Doubao has emerged as the leader in download volume. Meanwhile， AI assistant applications like Kimi， Zhipu， Wenxiaoyan， and Tongyi are all seeing a collective decline in monthly active users， with Keling experiencing a drop of over 16%.
New vertical scenarios have produced surprising contenders. In the “AI + Office” segment， ima saw a month-on-month increase of 190.2% in monthly active users， while 360 Wenku recorded a 134.5% rise. In the “AI + Education” domain， ByteDance’s Doubao Aixue reported 7.562 million monthly active users， and even more impressively， Zuoyebang’s Kuaidui AI boasts a substantial 10.444 million monthly active users.
The aforementioned ranking is based on two core metrics: monthly average downloads and monthly active users (MAU)， shedding light on the evolving landscape of AI applications in what can be considered the “mid-game” of this technological race.
Experts have attributed DeepSeek’s significant downturn to several key factors:
- The “high cost-performance” label is being increasingly challenged by the market. This has intensified user attrition， as major players like Alibaba， ByteDance， and Baidu have introduced comparable models with lower API pricing. The competitive pricing strategy of larger companies directly impacts the perceived value proposition of DeepSeek.
- User traffic is being siphoned off as DeepSeek is integrated into other applications. When DeepSeek’s technology is embedded within a broader ecosystem， users may naturally gravitate towards the primary application， leading to a decoupling from DeepSeek as a standalone service.
- As a general-purpose intelligent Q&A product， DeepSeek lacks deep user engagement in specific vertical scenarios such as office， learning， and entertainment. This limited specialization hinders its ability to foster long-term user loyalty and reduces its overall attractiveness compared to more niche solutions.
- The DeepSeek-R2 model， which was highly anticipated and originally slated for a May release， has yet to materialize as of mid-July. This delay raises serious questions about the company’s technical iteration capabilities and its ability to keep pace with rapid industry advancements.
