The longest App Store ad still running among EU AI assistants does not belong to OpenAI or Google. It belongs to ChatOn, a wrapper app that puts several models behind one chat box. Its English line "One Chatbot, Multiple AI Tools" has stayed live 318 days across 18 countries, last recorded 15 July 2026. ChatOn is also the heaviest advertiser in the set at 4,042 ad records, more than ChatGPT and Grok combined.
We pulled every App Store ad these apps ran across EU storefronts from Apple's public Ad Repository, the transparency dataset the EU Digital Services Act requires. Here is the survivor board, sorted by how long each app's longest creative has stayed live. Data window ends 16 July 2026.
The survivor board
| App | Distinct creatives | Longest creative | Total ad records tracked |
|---|---|---|---|
| ChatGPT | 63 | over 1 year ("The official app by OpenAI", en-GB, 16 countries, stopped 19 April 2026) | 2,362 |
| ChatOn AI | 26 | 318 days ("One Chatbot, Multiple AI Tools", en-GB, 18 countries, still live 15 July 2026) | 4,042 |
| Perplexity | 21 | 283 days ("Ask. Research. Trusted Answers", en-GB, 20 countries, still live 15 July 2026) | 3,184 |
| Google Gemini | 35 | 269 days ("Your AI assistant from Google", en-GB, still live 15 July 2026) | 2,714 |
| Grok | 29 | 59 days ("AI chat & video generation", en-GB, 17 countries, stopped 24 June 2026) | 2,215 |
(ChatOn is the App Store listing "ChatOn AI - Chat Bot Assistant". Grok is "Grok AI".)
A few readings of this table.
The heaviest spender is a wrapper, not a lab. ChatOn runs the most ad records (4,042) and the longest still-live ad (318 days). It has no frontier model of its own and no brand pull, so it buys every install it can at the search results screen. The famous names spend less because their names do some of the work for them. When you sort AI assistants by advertising effort, the leaderboard inverts the one you would expect.
ChatGPT churns the most creatives and commits to none for long. OpenAI ran 63 distinct creatives, more than double anyone else here, but its year-long "The official app by OpenAI" line stopped on 19 April 2026. Since then ChatGPT runs shorter lines like "Your everyday AI assistant" that turn over in weeks. The incumbent tests constantly and lets each winner go. The challengers do the opposite: find one line, run it for most of a year.
Two challengers keep a single English line alive for most of a year. ChatOn's "One Chatbot, Multiple AI Tools" (318 days) and Perplexity's "Ask. Research. Trusted Answers" (283 days) are both still running. Gemini's "Your AI assistant from Google" has held 269 days and is also live. An ad that has already run most of a year and keeps running is the strongest free signal a category gives you that a creative converts.
Grok was a burst, not a program. Grok ran 2,215 records and 29 creatives in a hard push from late April to late June 2026, then went dark. Its longest ad reached 59 days and stopped on 24 June. Every Grok creative in the data has stopped. A spend spike that ends tells you far less than one line held live for 300 days.
The apps that are not on this board
Search Apple's advertiser index for Claude, DeepSeek, Microsoft Copilot, or Mistral's Le Chat and you get no App Store ad record in the EU for this window. Four of the most-discussed assistants in the world run zero App Store ads.
They do not need to. Copilot ships inside Windows and Microsoft 365. Gemini ships inside Android and Google Search, which is why even Google's own App Store ad spend sits below a wrapper's. Claude grows through developers and word of mouth. The lesson for a founder is not "advertising is optional", it is that App Store ads are what you buy when you do not already own distribution. The apps advertising hardest here are the ones without a platform behind them.
Where these apps buy
Almost every ad on this board ran in App Store search results, the slot you see after typing a query. Two behaviors stand out. ChatGPT and Gemini are the only apps here buying the Today tab, Apple's editorial front page, a brand placement the challengers skip. And ChatOn is the only app buying competitor product pages at volume, 245 of its records ran on other apps' listings, so it appears on the page of the app you were about to download.
That split tracks intent. The labs with brands to build buy the front page. The wrapper with installs to win buys the results screen and its rivals' pages.
How to read this for your own category
Longevity is the cheapest performance signal you can get for free. Nobody keeps funding an ad that loses money, so a creative still live after months, and past a year in some cases, is one that converts. Pull your own category the same way: list your three closest rivals, sort their ads by how long each has run, and write your first creatives against the survivors, not against the ads that stopped. Watch who is missing too, because an absent advertiser usually owns distribution some other way. Then check monthly, because a new long-runner appearing is a rival finding a new winner.
See any advertiser's ads yourself
See which of your own competitors' ads have survived longest, free, no account, in about a minute. Type an app, get its live ads ranked by how long each has stayed up.
Method note: figures are computed from Apple's public Ad Repository (DSA Article 39), across 25 EU storefronts, data window ending 16 July 2026. "Days running" is the span from a creative's first to last recorded impression across those markets, and "over 1 year" is Apple's own 365+ marker. "Runs no App Store ads" means no advertiser record returned in Apple's EU repository for this window. Longevity is a proxy for performance, not a measured conversion rate. We invented no numbers beyond what the repository reports. Refreshed monthly.