New York recorded the highest rate of creative AI searches among US states in an analysis by creative services company Superside. It averaged 3,777 monthly searches per 100,000 residents, about 20% above the national benchmark of 3,141. California ranked second by population but recorded the largest total, at about 1.46 million searches a month.
Image generation and video creation or editing accounted for more than six in every ten searches analysed. For tourism marketers, those categories overlap with familiar work such as preparing destination visuals, editing hotel footage and adapting campaign material for different audiences. The study did not identify which industries generated the searches.
California Leads on Volume as Utah Climbs on Population
California averaged 3,700 monthly searches per 100,000 residents, just 77 behind New York. It generated nearly twice New York’s total monthly search volume of 755,490. The two measures answer different questions. Total volume reflects the scale of search activity, while the population-adjusted rate allows a comparison between states of different sizes.
Washington placed third at 3,577 searches per 100,000 residents, followed by New Jersey at 3,557. Utah took fifth place at 3,498, one search per 100,000 ahead of Virginia. Utah ranked 26th by total volume, showing how much the choice of measure can alter the standings.
Massachusetts, Georgia, Texas and Nevada completed the top ten. Texas placed ninth by population-adjusted activity but recorded nearly 1.08 million monthly searches overall. At the other end of the ranking, Mississippi averaged 1,924 searches per 100,000 residents, followed by South Dakota and Louisiana. New York’s rate was almost twice Mississippi’s.
Image and Video Tools Draw the Most Attention
Image generation and AI art were the leading category in all ten of the highest-ranked states, followed by video creation and editing. In New York, the two categories accounted for about 453,000 monthly searches combined. In California, they accounted for about 853,000.
The video category covers more than generating new footage. Someone researching an editing tool might want to shorten a clip, add captions or make several versions of the same material. For a tour operator, that could mean adapting existing footage for a short social video. For a hotel, it could mean turning a property tour into separate clips about rooms and facilities.
Productivity and workflow automation ranked third across the study. Those searches concern a different part of creative work, such as revising, formatting or adapting materials. For a small tourism business, those recurring tasks can be as relevant to evaluating a tool as the images or videos it produces.
What the Rankings Measure
Superside analysed average monthly Google search volumes across nine categories and adjusted the state figures using 2025 population estimates. Alongside images and video, the study covered photo editing, audio, writing, design, marketing, workflow automation and coding.
The unit of measurement was a search. One person can make several queries while comparing tools or looking for help with software they already use. The study therefore captures interest in the selected terms. It cannot establish how many unique people use creative AI, whether they pay for it or how often they use it in their work.
The figures also offer a snapshot rather than a measure of growth over time. A state’s ranking shows how its search rate compared with others in the analysis. It leaves open whether interest in that state accelerated, levelled off or changed between individual tools.
Why the Findings Matter for Travel Marketing
Tourism businesses rely on images and video to show travellers what they can expect before booking. A hotel can use creative tools to plan a campaign or edit existing footage. When the material depicts a specific room, pool or view, accuracy matters because guests may use it to choose a property or pay for a particular room category.
The same distinction applies to destination campaigns. A concept image can help a team develop ideas internally, while a published visitor guide needs to represent the actual location and experience. Editing footage from a tour and generating an imagined version of that tour serve different purposes.
The state rankings give travel marketers a picture of where people are researching creative tools. Assessing their value to tourism would require separate evidence, such as which businesses use them, what work they apply them to and whether the resulting material helps travellers make better-informed bookings.
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