Anthropic’s chatbot Claude seems to have benefited from the eye around the corporate’s fraught negotiations with the Pentagon.
As first reported by CNBC, Claude has been rising to the highest of the free app rankings in Apple’s US App Store. On Saturday evening, it overtook OpenAI’s ChatGPT to say the primary spot, a position that it still held on Sunday morning.
In accordance with data from SensorTower, Claude was just outside the highest 100 at the top of January, and has spent most of February somewhere in the highest 20. It’s climbed rapidly prior to now few days, from sixth on Wednesday, then fourth on Thursday, then first on Saturday.
An organization spokesperson said that every day signups have broken the all-time record on daily basis this week, free users have increased greater than 60% since January, and paid subscribers have greater than doubled this yr.
After Anthropic attempted to barter for safeguards stopping the Department of Defense from using its AI models for mass domestic surveillance or fully autonomous weapons, President Donald Trump directed federal agencies to stop using all Anthropic products and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said he’s designating the corporate a supply-chain threat.
OpenAI subsequently announced its own agreement with the Pentagon, which CEO Sam Altman claimed includes safeguards related to domestic surveillance and autonomous weapons.
This post was first published on February 28, 2026. It has been updated to reflect Anthropic reaching No. 1, and to incorporate growth numbers from the corporate.
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