Andreessen Horowitz published the seventh edition of its Top 100 Consumer AI Apps report on October 5, 2026, and made a quiet but consequential change: for the first time, products "primarily designed for NSFW use cases" are excluded from the rankings. The firm also disclosed that those excluded apps would have represented more than 20% of the web traffic ranking under the prior methodology.
The report, authored by a16z partner Olivia Moore, ranks the top 50 web products by monthly visits (via Similarweb) and the top 50 mobile apps by monthly active users. This edition adds a third leaderboard for the first time: a U.S. consumer card spending ranking powered by YipitData. But the NSFW exclusion is the change that matters most for the companion AI market.
What a16z Said — and Didn't Say
a16z was careful to frame the exclusion as a categorization choice, not a value judgment. "We're making one change to eligibility from this list forward: products primarily designed for NSFW use cases will be excluded," the report states. "This should not be interpreted as a decrease in demand for these products — we're treating them as a distinct category rather than ranking them alongside SFW products."
The 20% figure is the real headline. If a16z had kept NSFW products in the rankings, more than one in five spots on the web traffic list would have gone to adult-oriented AI platforms. That tracks with what AI Haven's own market data has shown: the NSFW AI chatbot market hit $400 million earlier this year, and companion platforms consistently drive some of the highest engagement numbers in consumer AI.
A Market Too Big to Ignore, Too Awkward to Rank
The decision reflects a growing tension in consumer AI. Mainstream platforms like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta have all drawn hard lines against adult content — OpenAI indefinitely paused its adult mode project in March 2026, Meta's Muse launched with no NSFW toggle, and Anthropic's Claude models remain tightly filtered. That leaves a vacuum that specialized NSFW platforms have filled aggressively.
By excluding these products rather than ranking them, a16z avoids putting adult AI alongside ChatGPT and Claude on a single list — but the 20% figure is an implicit acknowledgment that the NSFW segment is too large to pretend it doesn't exist. The report effectively creates a shadow ranking of adult AI apps that would dominate any traffic-based list.
What the Report Reveals About Consumer AI Spending
The new spending leaderboard adds another dimension. a16z found that the top 1% of paying users accounted for 19.5% of observed U.S. consumer card spending on AI products. The report notes that most AI apps still struggle to convert free users to paid subscribers — a challenge that NSFW platforms have partially solved through subscription tiers for chat, voice, and image generation.
SpicyChat, for example, charges from $5.95/month for basic access, with unlimited in-chat images at $19.95/month and voice replies at $29.95/month. Candy AI and CrushOn AI operate similar tiered models. The spending data suggests that adult AI platforms may have higher conversion rates than their SFW counterparts, since users seeking uncensored interaction have fewer free alternatives.
What This Means for the NSFW AI Market
a16z's decision to carve out NSFW products as a separate category is a double-edged signal. On one hand, it legitimizes the segment by acknowledging its scale — 20% of web traffic is not a niche. On the other hand, it reinforces the perception that adult AI is a category apart, which could influence how regulators, app stores, and payment processors treat these platforms.
For companion AI users, the report's key takeaway is straightforward: the NSFW AI market is large enough that a top-tier VC firm had to explicitly carve it out of its main rankings rather than let it dominate the list. The demand is real, the traffic is massive, and the mainstream platforms are still not serving it.