Discovering a good app in the App Store can often be like looking for a sock in a laundry basket; you know it’s in there somewhere, but good luck finding it without getting buried under a mountain of lookalikes. At WWDC 25 this year, Apple made a major leap towards revamping how users find apps on its platform, and AI is the driving force behind it. During a session focused on App Store Connect updates, Apple announced that it would start using large language models (LLMs) to generate App Store Tags automatically, introducing a more intelligent, search-friendly App Store experience for users and developers alike.

App Store Tags

App Store Tags are really smart labels that summarize an app’s key features and capabilities. Consider them as your app’s SEO, but generated by AI and refined by humans. Those tags will show up alongside app categories in search results and on app pages, providing users with more context and search control.

For instance, rather than scrolling through an app’s description by hand or deciphering cryptic screenshots, users will know instantly if an app has an offline mode, allows family sharing, features AR capabilities, or whatever is accentuated by a tag.

How Does It Work?

Apple’s large language models will create the tags by processing several data points, which include the app’s metadata, description, category, and screenshots. To guarantee precision and uphold App Store standards, these AI-created tags will be reviewed by humans prior to applying them to the apps.

Notably, the developers are in control. Apple highlighted that developers will have the option to manage, approve, or select against tags that are attached to their apps using a new tags management page within App Store Connect.

Improved User and Developer Discoverability

From the user’s point of view, this is a big victory. Tag-based search will enable more functional, personalized discovery. Typing budget planners into the search box might yield much more targeted results since the App Store will now categorize apps by functionality and not solely by keyword relevance or category. Each tag directs to a carefully curated collection page, leading users to apps and games with comparable features. It’s a development of Apple’s “You Might Also Like” feature, but one that’s AI-fuelled and accustomed to user intent.

For developers, this is a subtle but significant change. Visibility of an app may no longer depend on keyword stuffing or advertising expenditure but on the extent to which an app satisfies user intent, as interpreted via tags. This provides smaller or specialist apps a fighting chance to be found, not through their name or brand, but through their functionality.

Other Features

App Store Tags weren’t the sole update that was announced. Apple is also rolling out a few features designed to provide developers with more customization and visibility:

  • Custom Product Pages: Developers can now create special product pages triggered by particular search terms, allowing more targeted marketing campaigns.
  • Improved Age Range Filters: The App Store will include five separate age ranges, providing parents and educators with more precise control over content.
  • Nutrition Labels 2.0: Apple is enhancing the transparency and expressiveness of app privacy labels, reaffirming its dedication to openness.
  • Code Flexibility: Apple is expanding offer code eligibility to consumables, non-consumables, and non-renewing subscriptions, providing developers with more flexibility in their promotional strategies.

These shifts point in the direction of an App Store that is not just more AI-savvy but also more developer-friendly and user-centric, which is a scarce equilibrium in today’s platform economies.

Apple’s AI Momentum

This is not the first time Apple has experimented with AI-driven App Store features. This spring, it released AI-written summaries of app reviews in the background, bite-sized paragraphs summing up user opinion and calling out important feedback.

The launch of App Store Tags follows on from this. It marks Apple’s increasing enthusiasm for functional AI use, prioritizing tools that enhance the user experience and developer insight over splashy generative images or chatbot showcases. Apple is integrating AI into commonplace usefulness, and doing that with a measured combination of automation and human control.

Apple’s Significant Update

Apple’s App Store is not merely a store anymore; it’s becoming a semantic search engine for functionality. With the introduction of App Store Tags, the company is making subtle shifts in how users discover what they’re looking for and how developers get discovered. By deploying AI behind the scenes, scanning metadata, exposing hidden characteristics, and reorganizing apps in innovative ways, Apple is not only enhancing discoverability but rewriting the digital shelf space rules.

App Store Tags may not make huge headlines when compared with humanoid robots or AI avatars, but they take aim at something much more significant, which is user clarity and developer visibility. Through placing functionality center stage in app discovery, Apple is quietly transforming the App Store into a wiser, more helpful place. In a universe where attention is a currency, providing users with the option to search by intent and not by keywords alone may prove to be the most significant update yet.