Claude tops US App Store after Pentagon labels Anthropic risk

Anthropic’s AI assistant Claude reached No. 1 on Apple’s US free app chart on Saturday, surpassing OpenAI’s ChatGPT a day after U.S. defense officials labeled Anthropic a supply‑chain risk and selected OpenAI to provide AI for classified military networks.

Claude climbed the U.S. iPhone rankings and moved up Android app charts in both the United States and the United Kingdom. ChatGPT remained the top iPhone app in the U.K. and continued to lead on Android in both markets, according to app-store rankings.

Anthropic reported record daily sign-ups last week, saying every day set a new high. The company reported that free active users rose more than 60% this year, daily sign-ups quadrupled in the recent period, and paid subscribers more than doubled.

Early Monday, more than 1,400 users reported service disruptions just after 6 a.m. ET. Anthropic reported the incident was resolved by about 11 a.m. ET and attributed the interruptions to “unprecedented demand for Claude” over the prior week.

The app’s rise followed a public dispute between Anthropic and the Defense Department. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth described Anthropic as a supply‑chain risk after the company declined to lift certain restrictions on the use of its models. Anthropic’s co‑founder and CEO, Dario Amodei, has said he will not allow the company’s technology to be used for mass surveillance or fully autonomous weapons, arguing current models are not reliable enough for such uses and that some applications would violate constitutional rights. Anthropic has contested the government’s authority to label it a supply‑chain risk and told customers and Pentagon contractors their existing use is not affected.

The federal government negotiated with OpenAI after talks with Anthropic ended. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced a deal with the government, stating ChatGPT will not be used for autonomous lethal systems or mass surveillance. Some AI experts, lawyers and technology workers questioned why talks with Anthropic ended and a deal with OpenAI included similar safeguards.

The controversy drew public attention and user action. Pop singer Katy Perry and other users announced they were switching to Claude and encouraged others to cancel ChatGPT subscriptions.

Anthropic highlighted a memory feature for paid users that imports prior conversations and published a step‑by‑step guide to help users migrate data and prompts. “With one copy‑paste, Claude updates its memory and picks up right where you left off,” the company wrote.

Anthropic reported the surge in downloads and subscriptions coincided with increased consumer interest in competing chatbot services.