Trends Sign in

AI trends of 2025, month by month

Most of 2025's big AI trends were photo prompts: Ghibli-style pictures from 25 Mar 2025, the action figure in a toy box in April, and a September wave of 3D figurines, retro saree portraits and polaroid hugs with your younger self. The year's AI videos were mostly clips you watched rather than starred in, like Bigfoot vlogs and bunnies on a trampoline. Below are 2025's AI trends month by month, each dated and sourced, with how big it got and where its searches stood on 16 Oct 2026 (most under 5% of their peak). The cards are this year's versions: real viral clips you can put your own face in, free preview first.

This year's versions: viral clips with your face in them

All trends →

Add your selfie once. See yourself in every trend here, free.

Adults only. Deleted after 30 days and never used for training.

Bulin 47 ↗ Rising Make yours
Bulin 47 ≈380M views · 1 person · 15s
Raindance Make yours
Raindance ≈200M views · 2 people · 28s
Hotel Lobby Make yours
Hotel Lobby ≈137M views · 2 people · 15s
Rumpelstiltskin Dance ↗ Rising Make yours
Rumpelstiltskin Dance ≈57M views · 1–2 people · 9s
Alors on Danse ↗ Rising Make yours
Alors on Danse ≈14M views · 2 people · 18s
Burning Bridges ↗ Rising Make yours
Burning Bridges ≈20M views · 1–2 people · 20s
I Wanna Love You ↗ Rising Make yours
I Wanna Love You ≈55M views · 1 pet · 10s
Smalltown Boy Cats ↗ Rising Make yours
Smalltown Boy Cats ≈46M views · 2 pets · 21s
MONTH BY MONTH

The AI trends of 2025, month by month

This is the social media kind of AI trend, the one people joined with a photo or an app, not the business forecasts. One row per trend, in the month it took off. How big gives the figures the sources published, plus our own search scale, where the Ghibli-style peak is 100 (an estimate). Peak and now gives the day searches peaked, how fast they fell, and the last four weeks as a share of that peak, read on 16 Oct 2026. We leave out trends made mostly by and for children, and pranks aimed at fooling family, and found no new trend to date in February or November.

MonthTrendWhat it wasHow bigPeak and now
MarGhibli-style photosYour photo redrawn as a hand-drawn anime still, from a prompt in ChatGPT. Posts took off on 25 Mar 2025, the day its new image generator launched (Know Your Meme).130M+ people tried the generator in its first week, per OpenAI's COO (The Decoder, 3 Apr). 100 on our scale: the yardstick for the other rows.Peaked 30 Mar; down to a tenth by 6 Apr, 12 days after the first posts. Under 0.5% now.
AprAI action figure (the doll box)You as a boxed toy doll or action figure, with your name on the packaging and accessories that sum up your life, made in ChatGPT.ChatGPT hit an all-time high of 184.4M visits on 9 Apr 2025 (Similarweb, via Yahoo News). 6 on our scale.Peaked 11 Apr; halved in 3 days and a tenth by 21 Apr. About 2% now.
AprPet to humanUpload your cat or dog and ask ChatGPT to show it as a person. WALA's Fox10 covered it on 17 Apr 2025 and said it seemed to have started on Reddit.A spike in mid-April 2025, then a bigger second life: searches for 'dog to human ai' reached their high in the week of 3 May 2026.The longest tail of any 2025 trend: the last four weeks averaged about 35% of that 2026 high, though the two latest weeks were down to 8%.
MayBigfoot AI vlogsBigfoot filming himself like a travel vlogger. AI vlogs took off after Google's new video model launched on 20 May 2025, and @bigfootvlogs posted five days later.That first post passed 676K likes in a month (Know Your Meme). 0.6 on our scale.Peaked 14 Jun, then took until 20 Sep to reach a tenth. Still about 9%.
MayThe emotional support kangarooA fake clip of a kangaroo turned away at a boarding gate while its owner argues with staff, posted on Instagram on 26 May 2025.DramaAlert shared it on X the next day as if it had happened; Lead Stories rated it fake and AI-made on 28 May.Searched for about a month. Nothing now.
JunGlass fruit cutting (AI ASMR)A knife slicing through fruit made of glass, with crisp generated sound. Fast Company named the same Google video model as the key tool behind AI ASMR.A glass coconut by @wildwhispers_asmr had 67.4M views and a glass strawberry 26M (Fast Company South Africa, June 2025).'glass fruit cutting' peaked in the week of 22 Jun. AI ASMR as a whole peaked in August 2025 and is still at about 59% of that.
JulEarth zoom outA video effect: the camera starts close on you and pulls back through the city and the country to the whole Earth and out into space.3 on our scale. Kapwing's how-to went up on 23 Jul 2025.Peaked 6 Jul; a tenth by 3 Aug. About 1% now.
JulBunnies on a trampolineFake night-time security-camera footage of rabbits bouncing on a backyard trampoline, posted on TikTok by @rachelthecatlovers on 27 Jul 2025. Lead Stories showed it was AI the next day: one bunny vanishes and another changes shape.148.8M plays and 18M likes in two days (Know Your Meme). 0.45 on our scale.Peaked 30 Jul; a tenth by 21 Aug. Under 1% now.
AugGoogle's new image modelNot a trend itself: the image model Google added to its Gemini app on 26 Aug 2025 set off most of the September rows below.More than 200M images edited, and 10M+ people new to Google's Gemini app, in about a week (Google's Josh Woodward, via 9to5Google, 4 Sep).Google's own year-end post, on 29 Dec, named 13 trends made with it.
Sep3D figurineA miniature figurine of yourself, often posed in front of a computer screen, made in Gemini. It started in Thailand, spread to Indonesia and went worldwide through India (Google DeepMind's David Sharon, via TechCrunch).Figurines made Google's year-end list. Over the last 28 days 'ai figurine' was searched about as much as 'ghibli ai'.Peaked 11 Sep; halved by 15 Sep and a tenth by 20 Sep. About 5% now, though '3d figurine' also catches 3D printing.
SepRetro saree portraitsA vintage-style portrait of you in a saree, made in Gemini, mostly by people in India. Some called it the 'AI saree'.Gemini's daily installs in India rose from 55,000 on 1 Sep to 414,000 on 13 Sep, and it was India's top iPhone app from 10 Sep (Appfigures, via TechCrunch). 14 on our scale, the highest of the September wave.Peaked 14 Sep; a tenth by 20 Sep. About 2.5% now, yet still the most searched trend here.
SepPolaroid hug with your younger selfA polaroid-style photo of you hugging a younger you, made in Gemini. Gulf News covered it as the 'hug my younger self' trend on 25 Sep 2025.5 on our scale. Google's year-end list has it as 'you with your younger self'.Peaked 13 Sep but took until 13 Oct to reach a tenth, the slowest fade of the September wave. About 2.5% now.
SepSelfie with a celebrityAn AI photo of you taking a selfie with a film star, made in Gemini. In India, Storyboard18 reported a wave of selfies with Shah Rukh Khan, one in front of Big Ben (16 Sep 2025).Searches for 'selfie with celebrity' jumped in the week of 14 Sep, to about three-quarters of their later high. The bigger wave came in December, as video.See December.
SepHorror-movie-mask photo promptA moody picture of you with a masked horror-film killer, made from your photo and a written prompt. The earliest known post went up on Instagram on 25 Sep 2025. We leave its name out: the mask is someone else's trademark.1.4 on our scale.Peaked 28 Sep; a tenth by 5 Oct. No comeback this October so far: flat at 2–3% of the peak. For Halloween trends you can star in, see AI Halloween trends.
DecTurn the Lights Off (the Jon Hamm dance)Jon Hamm dancing eyes-closed in a club, a scene from the Apple TV+ series Your Friends & Neighbors, cut into memes from October and huge by December. From late December people used AI to swap in their own faces or their pets. It's a TV scene, so we don't make it.The biggest post we found, from 6 Dec, had 9.9M plays. Kato's 2010 track behind it climbed to No. 82 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 33 in the UK (Wikipedia).'turn the lights off ai' peaked in the week of 28 Dec 2025. About 3% now.
DecCelebrity selfie videosThe September selfie came back as video: you walking through film sets, taking selfies with Hollywood stars, joined by smooth transitions (FlexClip's guide, updated 26 Dec 2025).Searches for 'selfie with celebrity' reached their high in the week of 21 Dec, above the September photo wave.Halved by the week of 28 Dec; under a tenth by August 2026. About 1% now.
DecAI Christmas photosFestive edits of your own photo, putting you in a holiday scene. Google's year-end list counts 'holiday edits' among its 13.Over the last 28 days 'ai christmas photo' was already searched 1.2 times as much as 'ghibli ai', with Christmas ten weeks away.Searches climbed from the week of 23 Nov 2025 and peaked in the week of 21 Dec; under a tenth by early January.

Our scale is an estimate built from daily worldwide Google Trends data for each trend's own name, read on 15 Oct 2026: it sets each peak beside the Ghibli-style one. Peak, half and tenth dates come from the same data (half and tenth mean three days running below that level). 'Now' is the last four weeks against each term's own weekly peak, and the 28-day comparisons set each term beside 'ghibli ai' = 1, both from our 16 Oct 2026 pull. Google Trends measures interest, not numbers of searches, so the smallest figures are rough.

THE 2026 VERSIONS

Liked a 2025 trend? Star in its 2026 version

2025's trends gave you a picture, or a clip of somebody else. This year's are real viral clips with you in them: add a selfie and see a free preview still in under a minute, then get the full video, emailed in about 5–10 minutes, for 100 credits ($9.90) whether it's you, two of you or your pets. Your face and hair go in; the body, clothes, moves, camera and the clip's own sound stay. And they're live now, while most rows above are down to a few percent of their peak.

  1. Bulin 47↗ Rising ≈380M views · 1 person · 15s If you made the action figure or the figurine, you put yourself on a shelf as the star. Bulin 47 puts you in the middle of a real crowd instead: the freestyle under red lights from 2 Oct 2026, with everyone around you filming on their phones. About 370M views across TikTok, Reels and Shorts by our estimate (read 16 Oct 2026). Just you. See yourself in it
  2. Raindance ≈200M views · 2 people · 28s For the hand-drawn-portrait and polaroid-hug crowd. Those were stills; this one moves. 28 seconds on a wooden pier at golden hour from the January 2026 'Raindance' video: the look back, the green dress. Its biggest remake had 50.5M plays when we read it on 16 Oct 2026. You and your person. See yourself in it
  3. Hotel Lobby ≈137M views · 2 people · 15s For anyone who made a selfie with a star. Instead of an AI picture next to someone famous, it's a real performance clip from a 2022 studio session: two people, one hanging mic, the orange wall. The AI swaps began on 16 Sep 2026 and together have about 137M views by our estimate (read 16 Oct 2026). You and a friend. See yourself in it
  4. Rumpelstiltskin Dance↗ Rising ≈57M views · 1–2 people · 9s 2025's AI creatures, like the Bigfoot vloggers, were clips you watched. This one you play: the imp in a velvet tailcoat from an AI-made fake 1987 fantasy scene posted on Instagram on 27 Aug 2026. He creeps up, shushes, grins and tiptoes into a dance. Your face on the imp, or a friend as the maiden. A good one for Halloween. See yourself in it
  5. Alors on Danse↗ Rising ≈14M views · 2 people · 18s The one with a 2025 date of its own. Jamel TV posted the clean edit of this 2010 sketch on 6 Nov 2025, and in October 2026 it became an AI trend: one friend concentrating on a tiny keyboard, the other who can't stop dancing. Two of you. See yourself in it
  6. Burning Bridges↗ Rising ≈20M views · 1–2 people · 20s Turn the Lights Off, last December's party-scene swap, is TV footage we don't make. This party scene you can: the chandelier room from the May 2026 'Burning Bridges' video, cup up, a hand over your eyes, friends pointing behind you. The first AI side-by-side went up on 5 Oct 2026. In beta: just you, or with a friend. See yourself in it
  7. I Wanna Love You↗ Rising ≈55M views · 1 pet · 10s For the pet-to-human crowd who'd rather keep their pet a pet. A white cat in a mustard corduroy suit films a night selfie by the tennis courts and belts out Akon's 2006 hit. Posted on 1 Oct 2026, it had 21.9M plays when we read it on 16 Oct. Your cat or dog, the whole animal, same suit. See yourself in it
  8. Smalltown Boy Cats↗ Rising ≈46M views · 2 pets · 21s The bunnies on the trampoline were someone else's fake rabbits. Here it's your own two pets: two cats on their hind legs at a red fence, screaming along to Bronski Beat's 1984 'Smalltown Boy'. The AI clip went up on 2 Oct 2026, and its TikTok had 10.6M plays on 16 Oct. Two pets, whole animals. See yourself in it
WHAT THE DATA SAYS

What 2025's AI trends had in common

The big waves followed new AI tools. Ghibli-style posts began the day OpenAI's new image generator came out (25 Mar), the Bigfoot vlogs five days after Google's video model (20 May), and the figurine, polaroid and saree searches peaked 16, 18 and 19 days after Google's image model (26 Aug). Google's own year-end post on 29 Dec 2025 listed 13 trends made with that one model, from figurines and 'you with your younger self' to hairstyle experiments, photo restoration, holiday edits and 'puppies galore'.

Photo prompts burned out fastest. Of the 11 trends from 2025 in our dataset, the seven photo prompts lost half their search a median of 3 days after the peak and were at a tenth after 9. The four AI video trends took a median of 7 days to halve, and three of them needed four weeks or more to reach a tenth. Across all 11, it was 4 days to half and 16 to a tenth.

Almost none came back. A year after their peaks, the seven photo prompts were at a median of 2% of them. This October the horror-mask prompt, which peaked on 28 Sep 2025, is flat at 2–3%, Halloween or not. The exceptions are formats rather than single trends: pet-to-human pictures peaked in May 2026, a year after they began, and AI ASMR is still at about 59% of its August 2025 high.

The year ended with a face swap. Nearly every big 2025 trend that starred you was a still picture. The only one on this list that put people's own faces into a famous clip was Turn the Lights Off, in the last days of December. That's the kind of trend 2026 has been full of, from Hotel Lobby in September to Bulin 47 in October: see AI video trends of 2026.

STILL SEARCHED

Which 2025 AI trends do people still search for?

A few, and none the way people search a live trend. Google searches in the 28 days to 16 Oct 2026, with 'ghibli ai' set at 1:

Next to one live trend, they're small

Over the same 28 days, 'hotel lobby ai', one of this autumn's video remakes, came in at 5.2: more than any 2025 trend on this page. Its own peak fell inside that window, on 26 Sep 2026, and by 14 Oct it was down to 6% of it: a trend's best days are short. That's why the cards on this page are 2026 trends. If you want to post one while people are still looking for it, start with Bulin 47: its searches were still at 65% of their 10 Oct peak on 14 Oct.

Not 2025: the 80s photo, the caricature and the AI hug

How we made this list

A trend is here if it started in 2025 and we could date it from a post, an article or our own search data. Each row names its source, and every source is listed below with the day we read it; most were opened on 16 Oct 2026.

The search figures are ours. Peak and fade dates come from daily worldwide Google Trends data for each trend's own name, read on 15 Oct 2026. The 'now' shares and the 28-day comparisons come from weekly data since January 2023 and a 90-day daily pull against 'ghibli ai', both read on 16 Oct 2026. The full dataset of 23 AI trends and how we time their fades is in how long TikTok trends last.

We don't make any of 2025's trends. Most were photo prompts, which we don't do; the rest were AI-made clips with no single real video to put you in, fakes, or a TV scene. What we make is the newer kind: a real viral clip with your face in it.

If a date here is wrong, or a 2025 trend is missing, email [email protected] with a source and we'll fix it.

QUESTIONS

Questions about 2025's AI trends

What is the AI trend in 2025?

There wasn't one, there was a run of them, mostly photo prompts: Ghibli-style photos (March), the action figure in a toy box (April), Bigfoot vlogs (May), glass fruit ASMR (June), bunnies on a trampoline (July), then September's 3D figurines, retro saree portraits and polaroid hugs with your younger self, and Turn the Lights Off in December. On 16 Oct 2026 nearly all of them are at a few percent of their peak; the 2026 trends are video remakes instead.

What were the AI trends of 2025 on TikTok?

On TikTok: the Bigfoot AI vlogs (from 25 May), glass fruit cutting ASMR (June), the fake bunnies on a trampoline (148.8M plays in two days from 27 Jul) and the Jon Hamm club dance behind Turn the Lights Off at the end of the year. The photo prompts, from Ghibli-style to the saree, were made in ChatGPT or Gemini and posted everywhere, TikTok included.

What were the AI trends of 2025 on Instagram?

The earliest known horror-mask photo went up on Instagram on 25 Sep 2025, the fake emotional support kangaroo first appeared there on 26 May, and Indian users posted AI selfies with Shah Rukh Khan there in September. Instagram hides view counts when you're logged out, so we can't say how big each got on it.

What were the Gemini AI trends in 2025?

Almost all came after Google added a new image model to Gemini on 26 Aug 2025: the 3D figurine (search peak 11 Sep), the polaroid hug with your younger self (13 Sep), the retro saree (14 Sep), selfies with celebrities, and the horror-mask photo (28 Sep). Google's year-end post on 29 Dec 2025 named 13, including hairstyle experiments, photo restoration and holiday edits.

What was the ChatGPT trend in 2025?

Three big ones, all in spring, after ChatGPT's new image generator launched on 25 Mar 2025: Ghibli-style photos (search peak 30 Mar), the action figure in a toy box (11 Apr) and pets turned into people (from mid-April). On 9 Apr ChatGPT had 184.4M visits, its highest to that point (Similarweb, via Yahoo News).

When was the Ghibli AI trend?

Late March 2025. Posts took off on 25 Mar, searches peaked on 30 Mar and were down to a tenth of that by 6 Apr. On 16 Oct 2026 they're under 0.5% of the peak.

What were the AI trends in September 2025?

The busiest month of the year: the 3D figurine, retro saree portraits, the polaroid hug with your younger self, selfies with celebrities and, from 25 Sep, the horror-mask photo. Three of them peaked within four days, between 11 and 14 Sep.

What were the AI trends in October 2025?

Mostly the tail of September's photo wave. The Jon Hamm club dance behind Turn the Lights Off was starting as a meme on Russian TikTok that month and took off in December.

What were the AI video trends of 2025?

Mostly generated clips you watched: Bigfoot vlogs, glass fruit ASMR, the earth zoom out, and two fakes, the bunnies on a trampoline and the kangaroo at the boarding gate. Turn the Lights Off, at the end of the year, was the one where people put their own faces into a real clip. For video trends you can star in now, see the cards at the top or AI video trends of 2026.

Sources

  1. Google Trends: daily worldwide searches for each 2025 trend's name, our lifecycle dataset (peak, half and tenth dates, and our scale) · read 15 Oct 2026
  2. Google Trends: weekly worldwide searches for each term on this page, 1 Jan 2023 to 16 Oct 2026 (our pull) · read 16 Oct 2026
  3. Google Trends: 90 days of daily searches for each term against 'ghibli ai', including 'hotel lobby ai' (our pull; the 28-day comparisons) · read 16 Oct 2026
  4. Our dataset of 23 AI trends and how we time their fades (incl. the earliest known horror-mask post, 25 Sep 2025) · read 16 Oct 2026
  5. Know Your Meme: the Ghibli-style AI trend, earliest notable posts 25 Mar 2025, the day of the ChatGPT image launch · read 16 Oct 2026
  6. The Decoder, 3 Apr 2025: 130M+ users tried ChatGPT's image generation in its first week (OpenAI COO Brad Lightcap) · read 16 Oct 2026
  7. Yahoo News, 14 Apr 2025: the AI action figure and toy box trend; ChatGPT's 184.4M visits on 9 Apr (Similarweb) · read 16 Oct 2026
  8. Fox10 (WALA), 17 Apr 2025: pets turned into people with ChatGPT · read 16 Oct 2026
  9. Know Your Meme: AI vlogs, Google's video model (20 May 2025) and @bigfootvlogs (25 May) · read 16 Oct 2026
  10. Lead Stories, 28 May 2025: the emotional support kangaroo video is fake and AI-made · read 16 Oct 2026
  11. Fast Company South Africa, June 2025: the rise of AI ASMR and the glass fruit clips · read 16 Oct 2026
  12. Kapwing, 23 Jul 2025: how to make an AI earth zoom out video · read 16 Oct 2026
  13. Know Your Meme: AI bunnies jumping on a trampoline, posted 27 Jul 2025 · read 16 Oct 2026
  14. Lead Stories, 28 Jul 2025: the bunnies on a trampoline video fact check · read 16 Oct 2026
  15. Google Developers Blog, 26 Aug 2025: Google's new Gemini image model · read 16 Oct 2026
  16. 9to5Google, 4 Sep 2025: 200M+ images edited and 10M+ new Gemini users since the launch (Josh Woodward) · read 16 Oct 2026
  17. TechCrunch, 17 Sep 2025: India and the saree and figurine trends; Gemini installs in India (Appfigures) · read 16 Oct 2026
  18. Storyboard18, 16 Sep 2025: AI selfies with Shah Rukh Khan · read 16 Oct 2026
  19. Gulf News, 25 Sep 2025: the 'hug my younger self' AI trend · read 16 Oct 2026
  20. YouTube, Jamel TV: the Alors on Danse sketch (2010), posted 6 Nov 2025, 1.29M views · read 16 Oct 2026
  21. Know Your Meme: Jon Hamm Dancing in the Club Scene / Turn the Lights Off · read 16 Oct 2026
  22. TikTok, @thatgingerbrandon: the biggest Turn the Lights Off post we found, 6 Dec 2025 · read 16 Oct 2026
  23. Wikipedia: Turn the Lights Off (Kato's version, Hot 100 and UK peaks) · read 16 Oct 2026
  24. FlexClip (a video editor's guide), updated 26 Dec 2025: the AI selfie-with-celebrities video · read 16 Oct 2026
  25. Google, 29 Dec 2025: 13 of its favourite trends made with its image model in 2025 · read 16 Oct 2026
  26. Kapwing, 9 Sep 2026: the 80s photo trend guide · read 16 Oct 2026

Trend numbers on this page come from each trend's own page, where you'll find the posts they were read from. We never invent numbers; estimates are marked.

JUMP on the TREND
before it's over.

Pick a trend