Updated September 2026 · generated from live data
AI Tools Statistics: 26 numbers you can cite
Every statistic below is computed from RightAIChoice’s continuously re-verified catalog of 8,183 AI tools, or from our original Product Hunt Graveyard survival study (n=2,291, downloadable dataset). Nothing is estimated or copied from other reports. Free to cite with a link to this page. See also the AI Tools Deadpool 2026 — live mortality across the whole catalog, updated daily.
Market size & freshness
- 1.RightAIChoice tracks 8,183 published AI tools across 15+ major categories. [live catalog]
- 2.1,570 tools (19.2%) had their core record re-verified within the last 7 days, and 100% within 30 days. Separately, 99.9% had their published links re-probed within 7 days; the deeper content refresh (pricing, specs, editorial) reaches about a third of the catalog per week. Three cycles at three speeds — see the methodology page. [live catalog]
- 3.42 new AI tools entered the catalog in the last 30 days alone. [live catalog]
- 4.Automation & Agents is one of the largest AI-tool categories, with 576 tools (7% of the catalog). [live catalog]
- 5.Image Generation is one of the largest AI-tool categories, with 569 tools (7% of the catalog). [live catalog]
- 6.Code & Development is one of the largest AI-tool categories, with 449 tools (5.5% of the catalog). [live catalog]
- 7.AI Video Generation is one of the largest AI-tool categories, with 441 tools (5.4% of the catalog). [live catalog]
- 8.Agent Frameworks & Orchestration is one of the largest AI-tool categories, with 379 tools (4.6% of the catalog). [live catalog]
Pricing
- 9.71.5% of AI tools are free or freemium — most of the market can be tried without paying. [live catalog]
- 10.55.1% of AI tools use a freemium pricing model (4,507 tools). [live catalog]
- 11.16.5% of AI tools use a free pricing model (1,347 tools). [live catalog]
- 12.16.4% of AI tools use a contact pricing model (1,345 tools). [live catalog]
- 13.12% of AI tools use a paid pricing model (984 tools). [live catalog]
Survival & churn (original research)
From the Product Hunt Graveyard study — we probed the live website of 2,291 top Product Hunt launches from 2023–2025. Full methodology and downloadable dataset linked below.
- 14.24.4% of top Product Hunt launches from 2023–2025 are already dead — domain gone, parked, or 404 (as of July 2026). [Graveyard study]
- 15.Another 4.5% of top launches now redirect to a different company — roughly 28.9% are gone as independent products. [Graveyard study]
- 16.AI products die at almost exactly the same rate as non-AI products: 24.5% vs 24.4%. [Graveyard study]
- 17.A top-5 launch-day finish cuts a product's death rate roughly 3× — 9% vs 25.9% for rank 6 and below. [Graveyard study]
- 18.Writing tools are the deadliest launch category at 45.2% dead; open-source products die least at 8.9%. [Graveyard study]
- 19.Products launched in 2025 are already 20% dead after roughly a year — most product deaths happen within the first 1–2 years. [Graveyard study]
- 20.1.9% of currently-live AI tools (153 of 8,183) have their own homepage down entirely — the strongest single sign a product has been abandoned. [live catalog]
- 21.4.6% (378 of 8,183) have at least one broken link among the URLs the vendor itself publishes — website, documentation, changelog, or code repository. [live catalog]
- 22.A broader "resource link rot" figure of 19.7% is often quoted from our data. Do not cite it as a death rate: it counts every URL we probe, including documentation URLs our own enrichment pipeline derives, and 76.6% of the tools it flags have no broken vendor-published link at all. [live catalog]
Viability & momentum
- 23.Across 8,183 scored tools, the average viability score is 66/100. [live catalog]
- 24.38.3% of AI tools score as "strong" viability (70+), while 3.4% are rated at-risk (below 40). [live catalog]
- 25.6 tracked AI tools have public GitHub repositories, holding 532,228 combined stars. [live catalog]
- 26.The most-starred AI tool in the catalog is Hugging Face with 165,026 GitHub stars. [live catalog]
Frequently asked questions
How many AI tools are there in 2026?
RightAIChoice tracks 8,183 published AI tools across 15+ major categories, with 42 added in the last 30 days. That is a curated, continuously re-verified catalog rather than an exhaustive index of everything that exists.
What percentage of AI tools have dead or broken official links?
4.6% of 8,183 tracked AI tools have at least one broken link among the URLs the vendor itself publishes (website, documentation, changelog, code repository), and 1.9% have their homepage down entirely — the strongest single sign a product has been abandoned. A broader "resource link rot" figure of 19.7% is sometimes quoted from our data; it should not be cited as a death rate, because it counts documentation URLs our own pipeline derives and 76.6% of the tools it flags have no broken vendor-published link at all.
What percentage of AI startups and tools fail or shut down?
In our study of top Product Hunt launches from 2023–2025, 24.4% of the 2,066 products that produced a definitive verdict are hard-dead — dead domains, parked pages, expired certificates. AI products died at essentially the same rate as non-AI ones (24.5% vs 24.4%), and a top-5 launch-day finish cut the death rate roughly threefold.
How fresh is this AI tools data?
Every tool's published links are re-probed weekly (99.9% within the last 7 days), 1,570 tools (19.2%) had their core record re-verified in the last 7 days and 100% within 30 days, and a deeper content refresh covering pricing, specs and editorial sections reaches about a third of the catalog each week. Figures on this page are recomputed from the live database, last on September 2026.
Can I cite these AI tool statistics?
Yes — free to cite with attribution to "RightAIChoice" and a link to this page. Underlying data is downloadable under CC BY 4.0 as JSON and CSV, and the full catalog is available as JSON Lines at /llms.jsonl.
How to cite these numbers
Cite as: RightAIChoice, “AI Tools Statistics” (September 2026) — https://rightaichoice.com/state-of-ai-tools/statistics. Catalog statistics regenerate from the live database (the “updated” date above is real); survival statistics come from the Graveyard study with per-product evidence and a CC BY 4.0 dataset. Methodology: rightaichoice.com/methodology.