Skillselion Research · Reference · updated 2026-11-08
AI Agent Statistics
Every key number on the AI agent skill economy, in one place: 85,807 listings, 215.9M skill installs, 8,433 MCP servers. Each statistic names the dated census it comes from, and every census ships its raw dataset.
Skillselion indexes the whole agent skill ecosystem, so its research can measure it directly. This page compiles the headline statistics from every census we have published. Frozen editions never revise their numbers, which keeps each line below checkable years from now; when a new edition lands, this page picks up its findings. Reuse is free with attribution under CC BY 4.0.
01
Ecosystem size
The catalog held 85,807 listings on 2026-10-16. 63,336 of them are agent skills, and they carry 215,946,470 cumulative installs. Source: Agent Skill Pricing Census, Oct 16 2026.
On 2026-08-28 the catalog held 82,157 listings. Its 59,685 agent skills came from 5,690 publishing accounts. Source: Agent Skill Author Census, Aug 28 2026.
On 2026-08-12 the catalog held 79,848 listings: 58,766 agent skills, 8,433 MCP servers, 10,264 marketplaces and 2,385 plugins (as of 2026-08-12). Source: Agent Skill Security Census, Aug 12 2026.
Cumulative installs across the ecosystem reached 164,841,042 by 2026-08-12. Source: Agent Skill Security Census, Aug 12 2026.
The catalog recorded 35,931 installs per day at the August 9 census. Source: Agent Economy Census, Aug 9 2026.
8,433 MCP servers were indexed as of 2026-08-14, published by 5,392 distinct publishers. Source: MCP Server Census, Aug 14 2026.
None of the 8,433 catalogued MCP servers carries an install count: no per-server usage metric covers the population, so rankings fall back to GitHub stars. Source: MCP Server Census, Aug 14 2026.
GitHub stars for MCP servers belong to the host repository, not the server: 14.4% of repo-backed servers share a repository and inherit its full count, inflating naive star totals by 1.15x. Source: MCP Server Census, Aug 14 2026.
Star inequality across MCP servers reaches a Gini of 0.986; 54.9% have never been starred, while 43.4% of those with a push date shipped code within 30 days. Source: MCP Server Census, Aug 14 2026.
02
Money
Of the 4,902 agent skills that carry a pricing label, 70.4% are free, 24.8% need you to bring your own API key, 3.7% are freemium and 1.1% (56 skills) are paid. Source: Agent Skill Pricing Census, Oct 16 2026.
By installs, free skills take 89.7% of the 84,668,769 installs on priced skills; paid skills take 0.5%. Source: Agent Skill Pricing Census, Oct 16 2026.
1,215 bring-your-own-key skills make up 83.7% of all priced skills with any cost. The share that needs your own key is highest in business skills (43.4%) and AI skills (39.4%). Source: Agent Skill Pricing Census, Oct 16 2026.
OPENAI_API_KEY is named in the stored documentation of 107 skills from 39 publishing accounts, more publishers than any other service key. Source: Agent Skill Pricing Census, Oct 16 2026.
On 2026-08-09, 55 of 79,827 listings carried a paid price: 0.07% of the entire economy. This is a share of all listings, so it does not compare with the 1.1% share of priced skills above. Source: Agent Economy Census, Aug 9 2026.
1,404 listings ask users to bring their own API key; 184 run freemium. Source: Agent Economy Census, Aug 9 2026.
03
Concentration and inequality
8 of 5,690 publishing accounts hold 50.05% of all 162,061,967 skill installs; the top 1% of authors (57 accounts) hold 83.3%. Source: Agent Skill Author Census, Aug 28 2026.
The Gini coefficient of installs across authors is 0.982, and 52.7% of authors have zero installs on everything they published. Source: Agent Skill Author Census, Aug 28 2026.
Two official Lark developer accounts, open.feishu.cn and larksuite, hold 16.75% of all skill installs together. Source: Agent Skill Author Census, Aug 28 2026.
Official vendor accounts publish 9.3% of skills and take 25.5% of installs. Source: Agent Skill Author Census, Aug 28 2026.
Install inequality across skills reaches a Gini coefficient of 0.96; the most unequal country the World Bank tracks sits near 0.63. Source: Agent Economy Census, Aug 9 2026.
The top 1% of skills capture 77.4% of all installs; the median skill has 56 installs. Source: Agent Economy Census, Aug 9 2026.
ByteDance’s Lark suite alone accounts for 15.4% of every install in the ecosystem. Source: Agent Economy Census, Aug 9 2026.
Publisher #2 by skill installs is one person: educator Matt Pocock at 10.6M, just behind Microsoft at 11.2M. OpenAI trails 70x behind at 150,665. Source: Agent Economy Census, Aug 9 2026.
04
Security
87.8% of listings have never been audited by any provider; the audited 12.2% carry 83.3% of all installs. Source: Agent Skill Security Census, Aug 12 2026.
Five independent auditors published 41,791 verdicts across 9,758 listings; they contradict each other on 12.7% of the listings two of them both rate. Source: Agent Skill Security Census, Aug 12 2026.
1,346 listings flagged HIGH or CRITICAL hold 15,221,597 installs; the flagged list includes Microsoft, Anthropic, Vercel, Google and OpenAI. Source: Agent Skill Security Census, Aug 12 2026.
Skills declaring shell execution carry at least 43.5% of all installs; 3,137 shell-capable listings holding 15.9M installs were never audited. Source: Agent Skill Security Census, Aug 12 2026.
05
Copying and duplication
3,443 listings (4.3%) are verified copies of another listing, and they hold 15.8% of every install. Source: Agent Skill Clone Census, Aug 12 2026.
35.0% of copy-installs are publishers re-listing their own skills; one product family listed under three names spans 14.6% of the entire census. Source: Agent Skill Clone Census, Aug 12 2026.
Anthropic is the most-copied publisher: 374 copies of its skills together captured 3.15% of the installs the originals earned. Source: Agent Skill Clone Census, Aug 12 2026.
98.2% of agent skills declare no license in their manifest. Source: Agent Skill Clone Census, Aug 12 2026.
06
Use cases
The single largest use of AI agents by installs is generative media (images, video) at 20.8%, ahead of any single coding category. Source: Agent Use-Case Census, Aug 12 2026.
Ten software-engineering categories combined take 30.1% of installs; office and productivity work takes 14.7%. Source: Agent Use-Case Census, Aug 12 2026.
The most crowded category, AI & Agent Building, holds 22.7% of listings but earns 8.1% of installs. Source: Agent Use-Case Census, Aug 12 2026.
64.0% of installs serve the build stage of the maker journey; launch takes 2.5%. Source: Agent Use-Case Census, Aug 12 2026.
07
Maintenance and freshness
The install-weighted median age of agent skill code is 6 days; 48.5% of all installs sit on code pushed within a week of the census. Source: Agent Skill Maintenance Census, Aug 12 2026.
Listings untouched for 180+ days hold just 1.0% of installs; exactly 3 listings went a full year without a code push. Source: Agent Skill Maintenance Census, Aug 12 2026.
Over 99% of the unaudited shell-capable install mass sits on actively maintained code: fresh, not abandoned. Source: Agent Skill Maintenance Census, Aug 12 2026.
Cite
How to cite these statistics
Every number above comes from a dated Skillselion census computed from a complete dump of the production catalog, which aggregates public registry data, chiefly the skills.sh registry, alongside GitHub and other public sources. Cite the edition named next to the statistic and link its page; each edition carries its own methodology, caveats and a downloadable CSV that recomputes its numbers. All of it is free to reuse with attribution under CC BY 4.0. Standing rules live on How Skillselion Research is done. For a cut we have not published, email info@skillselion.com and we will run it against the census datasets.
Skillselion is an independent project and is not affiliated with Anthropic, OpenAI, Cursor, Claude, Claude Code, or Codex.
FAQ
Common questions
How many AI agent skills are there?
The 2026-10-16 census counted 63,336 agent skills among 85,807 total listings (with MCP servers, marketplaces and plugins making up the rest), carrying 215,946,470 cumulative skill installs. The live State of AI Agent Skills report recounts the catalog daily.
How many MCP servers are there?
The Skillselion catalog indexed 8,433 MCP servers as of 2026-08-14, aggregated from public registries and counted in full by the MCP Server Census. Treat the number as a floor for the whole ecosystem: it counts servers our ingestion has found and verified, and other registries count more (PulseMCP reported 22,070 on the same date). None of the 8,433 carries an install count, so MCP servers cannot be ranked by adoption the way agent skills can.
Are these statistics free to use?
Yes, with attribution (CC BY 4.0). Cite the edition named next to the statistic, for example "Skillselion Agent Skill Security Census, August 2026", and link its report page. Every edition ships its raw dataset, so each number here can be recomputed from a downloadable CSV.
How current are these numbers?
Each statistic names its census date. Frozen editions never change after publication, so a number you cite stays verifiable; this page is updated when a new edition lands, and its last update is 2026-11-08.