Anthropic’s Claude rises to #2 on the App Store after Pentagon Dispute

Anthropic’s chatbot, Cloud, appears to have benefited from the attention surrounding the company’s fraught negotiations with the Pentagon.

As first reported by CNBC, as of Saturday afternoon, Claude currently ranks second among free apps in Apple’s US App Store — the No. 1 app is OpenAI’s ChatGPT, and the No. 3 app is Google’s Gemini.

According to data from SensorTower, Claude was outside the top 100 at the end of January, and spent most of February somewhere in the top 20. Its ranking has risen in the past few days, from sixth on Wednesday to fourth on Thursday to second on Saturday (today).

After Anthropic tried to negotiate safeguards that would prevent 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 Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said he classified the company as a supply chain threat.

OpenAI later announced its own agreement with the Pentagon, which CEO Sam Altman claimed included safeguards regarding domestic surveillance and autonomous weapons.