Microsoft Store 2025 App Awards winners announced: Perplexity, ChatGPT, Castle Craft are among the top apps recognised this year

Microsoft Store awards

Microsoft has announced the winners of the 2025 Microsoft Store App Awards, recognising apps across categories ranging from AI assistants to gaming, creativity and productivity. The awards highlight apps that improved user experiences on Windows devices throughout the year, offering deeper integration, performance improvements and consistent updates. This year, AI-focused tools and cross-platform apps dominated multiple categories, reflecting user demand for automation, smart search and creative features.

AI assistants

The AI assistants category resulted in a tie, with Perplexity and ChatGPT jointly winning the award. Perplexity’s Windows app brings multi-modal AI search, voice dictation and deep desktop integration for quick research. It supports personal and enterprise workflows through IT policies, keyboard shortcuts and guided research modes. ChatGPT for Windows secured equal recognition for its instant answers via the Alt + Space companion window, support for image and file uploads and enterprise-level privacy controls. Its Windows-first features make it useful for both individuals and businesses.

Business and automation

In the business category, Invoice Maker & Estimate Creator by Moon Invoice won the award for its ability to simplify invoicing, expense tracking and financial record-keeping with templates and multi-channel sharing tools. Meanwhile, Manus won the Computer-Using Agents (CUA) category. It uses a sandboxed automation architecture to run code, manage files, control browsers and execute complex workflows. The app’s multi-agent system and “Manus’s Computer” interface enable users to track and guide tasks in real time.

Creativity, education and music

The creativity category was won by n-Track Studio for offering full-featured Windows-based audio recording and editing with support for unlimited tracks, VST plugins and AI-powered tools. Scratch 3 secured the education award for helping students learn coding concepts through visual block-based programming and hardware extensions like micro:bit and LEGO robots. Moises Live won the music category by using real-time AI audio separation to isolate vocals, instruments or dialogue at the system level, with all processing performed locally on Windows devices.

Gaming and productivity

In gaming, Castle Craft won for delivering resource-merging mechanics, quests and optimised controls suited for Windows hardware. Notion claimed the productivity award for turning scattered notes, tasks and documents into an integrated workspace with automation templates and offline access.

Microsoft says the winners will receive a special Store Award badge, marking their contribution to the Windows ecosystem.