AI art (text-to-image and image editing with generative AI) has moved from niche communities into mainstream creative workflows. Below are the latest publicly reported figures (mostly 2023–2025) on how much AI art is being created, how widely it’s used, and what’s shaping the market.
86% of creators in a global survey said they’re actively using creative generative AI. (Adobe Creators’ Toolkit Report, 16,000 creators; Sept 2025)
60% of creators said they used more than one creative genAI tool in the prior three months. (Adobe, 2025)
Creators’ top reported uses: 55% editing/upscaling/enhancement, 52% generating new assets (images/video), 48% ideation/brainstorming. (Adobe, 2025)
69% of creators said they’re concerned their content could be used to train AI without permission. (Adobe, 2025)
83% of creative professionals said they use generative AI at work; 74% use it in their personal lives. (Adobe survey of 2,541 creative pros; 2024)
20% of creative professionals said their company or clients require some genAI use. (Adobe, 2024)
Adobe reported Firefly had generated over 1 billion images/assets in just over three months from launch, and supported prompts in 100+ languages. (Adobe press release, July 2023)
OpenAI reported 1.5M+ users were creating 2M+ images per day with DALL·E (Sept 2022). (OpenAI)
An estimate tracking major text-to-image systems suggested 15B+ AI-generated images were created across Stable Diffusion, Firefly, Midjourney, and DALL·E 2 by Aug 2023, averaging about 34M images/day. (Everypixel Journal estimate)
The AI image generator market was estimated at $8.7B (2024) and forecast to reach $60.8B (2030) (CAGR 38.2%). (MarketsandMarkets, Aug 2024)
How many AI images are being generated?
Reliable “total AI images generated” counts are hard because many tools run locally or through third-party services. One widely cited public estimate (based on platform disclosures and extrapolations) put the total at 15B+ images across four major systems by August 2023, with Stable Diffusion-based outputs dominating the total.
Estimated cumulative AI-generated images by model (through Aug 2023)
Survey results show high adoption among both professional creatives and creator-economy creators. These percentages differ by audience and definitions, but together they show generative image tools are now routine in many workflows.
GenAI adoption indicators in creative contexts (survey results)
Label
Bar
Value
Creators using creative gen AI (Adobe survey, 2025)
86%
Creative pros using gen AI at work (Adobe, 2024)
83%
Creative pros using gen AI personally (Adobe, 2024)
74%
Creative pros required to use gen AI (Adobe, 2024)
20%
Max = 86%. Widths: Creators using creative gen AI (Adobe survey, 2025) 100.00%, Creative pros using gen AI at work (Adobe, 2024) 96.51%, Creative pros using gen AI personally (Adobe, 2024) 86.05%, Creative pros required to use gen AI (Adobe, 2024) 23.26%.
AI image generator market growth
Even conservative market estimates show rapid expansion. One 2024 market report projected the AI image generator market to grow from $8.7B in 2024 to $60.8B by 2030 (forecast CAGR 38.2%).
As AI art use expands, so do disputes over training data and outputs. In 2025, at least two major studio groups publicly filed lawsuits against Midjourney over alleged copyright infringement involving well-known characters:
June 11, 2025: Disney and NBCUniversal sued Midjourney (U.S. federal court, California).
September 4, 2025: Warner Bros. Discovery sued Midjourney, also alleging misuse of copyrighted characters.
Sources
Adobe (press release, Oct 28, 2025) — “Inaugural Adobe Creators’ Toolkit Report: 86 Percent of Global Creators Use Creative Generative AI…” https://news.adobe.com/news/2025/10/adobe-max-2025-creators-survey
Adobe Blog (Feb 2, 2024) — “Creative pros are leveraging Generative AI to do more and better work” https://blog.adobe.com/en/publish/2024/02/02/creative-pros-generative-ai-usage
Adobe (press release, July 12, 2023) — “Adobe Firefly Expands Globally, Supports Prompts in Over 100 Languages” https://news.adobe.com/news/news-details/2023/adobe-firefly-expands-globally-supports-prompts-in-over-100-languages
OpenAI (Sept 28, 2022) — “DALL·E now available without waitlist” https://openai.com/index/dall-e-now-available-without-waitlist/
Everypixel Journal (Aug 15, 2023) — “AI Image Statistics for 2024: How Much Content Was Created by AI” https://journal.everypixel.com/ai-image-statistics
MarketsandMarkets (Aug 2024) — “AI Image Generator Market… Global Forecast to 2030” https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/ai-image-video-generator-market-235119833.html
