Anthropic’s Claude rises to No. 1 in the App Store following Pentagon dispute

In Brief

Anthropic’s chatbot Claude seems to person benefited from the attraction astir the company’s fraught negotiations with the Pentagon.

As first reported by CNBC, Claude has been rising to the apical of the escaped app rankings successful Apple’s US App Store. On Saturday evening, it overtook OpenAI’s ChatGPT to assertion the fig 1 spot, a presumption that it inactive held connected Sunday morning.

According to data from SensorTower, Claude was conscionable extracurricular the apical 100 astatine the extremity of January, and has spent astir of February determination successful the apical 20. It’s climbed rapidly successful the past fewer days, from sixth connected Wednesday, past 4th connected Thursday, past archetypal connected Saturday.

A institution spokesperson said that regular signups person breached the all-time grounds each time this week, escaped users person accrued much than 60% since January, and paid subscribers person much than doubled this year.

After Anthropic attempted to negociate for safeguards preventing the Department of Defense from utilizing its AI models for wide home surveillance oregon afloat autonomous weapons, President Donald Trump directed national agencies to halt utilizing each Anthropic products and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said he’s designating the institution a supply-chain threat.

OpenAI subsequently announced its ain statement with the Pentagon, which CEO Sam Altman claimed includes safeguards related to home surveillance and autonomous weapons.

This station was archetypal published connected February 28, 2026. It has been updated to bespeak Anthropic reaching No. 1, and to see maturation numbers from the company.

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