The most-awaited AI assistant, Anthropic’s Claude, has surged to the top of Apple’s free US app charts, reaching No. 1 on Saturday. The rise comes as the company faces government pushback over its refusal to allow its models for mass domestic surveillance or fully autonomous weapons, with President Donald Trump and Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth publicly criticising the startup.
The defence secretary has recommended that the US government classify Anthropic as a ‘supply chain risk to national security', which would prevent US defence contractors from using the startup’s AI tools.
Trump has publicly condemned the US startup on his Truth Social platform, stating that the decision by the startup to enforce its terms of service on the Department of War was a “disastrous mistake".
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei responded, noting the significant value Claude provides to the armed forces and urging a reconsideration of the designation.
The app’s popularity grew from a rank of 131 in January to the top spot, bypassing OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which is ranked at 2, and Google’s Gemini, at rank 4.
Sensor Tower’s analytics indicate that daily sign-ups have tripled since November, and free sign-ups have increased by more than 60% since January. Paying subscribers have more than doubled this year and have broken records each day of this week.
Anthropic was founded in 2021 by former OpenAI employees and has been growing in corporate AI use cases such as coding and business in general. In response, OpenAI has partnered with consulting firms such as Accenture and Capgemini.