Anthropic’s chatbot Claude appears to have benefited from attention over the company’s intense negotiations with the Department of Defense.
As first reported by CNBC, as of Saturday afternoon, Claude currently ranks second among free apps in Apple’s U.S. App Store. The #1 app is OpenAI’s ChatGPT, and #3 is Google Gemini.
Data from SensorTower shows Claude ranked in the top 100 at the end of January and in the top 20 for most of February. The ranking has risen from 6th on Wednesday to 4th on Thursday and 2nd on Saturday (today) over the past few days.
After Anthropic attempted to negotiate safeguards to prevent the Department of Defense’s AI models from being used for large-scale domestic surveillance or fully autonomous weapons, President Donald Trump ordered federal agencies to stop using all Anthropic products, and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said he was designating Anthropic a supply chain threat.
OpenAI later announced its own contract with the Department of Defense, which CEO Sam Altman claimed included safeguards related to domestic surveillance and autonomous weapons.
