Following the deal with the Pentagon over AI military use, this week has been turbulent for OpenAI.
In a recent development, ChatGPT is receiving a severe backlash from the users in the US as the uninstall rate has surged to 295 percent, giving a blow to one of the most popular generative AI chatbots.
According to market intelligence firm Sensor Tower, the dramatic spike in the app uninstallation rate has surpassed the day-over-day uninstall rate of 9% over the past 30 days.
The impact went further than just people deleting the app. Even ChatGPT's downloads saw a massive drop of 13 percent on Saturday. The downward trend even continued into Sunday with downloads falling another 5 percent.
The shift in public opinion came after OpenAI’s deal with the Department of Defense in which the CEO Sam Altman allowed the US military to deploy the chatbot on all classified networks for “all lawful uses.”
Prior to OpenAI, Anthropic rejected the Pentagon deal due to its firm position on AI ethics. The CEO Dario Amodei refused to accept the deal for two reasons: the use of AI for mass surveillance of American citizens and managing autonomous weapons.
The recent surge in ChatGPT’s rate can be linked with ongoing grassroot movement known as “QuitGPT.”
Started in early February 2026, this movement urged the users to cancel the app’s subscription, uninstall it over safety concerns and opt for more secure AI alternatives.
The activists advised the users to use some higher privacy and open-source alternatives which include Alpine, Confer, and Lumo, Gemini, and Claude.
The boycott stems from political donations made by OpenAI president Greg Brockman. The activists also cited that US Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) deploys AI tools powered by ChatGPT-4 for resume screening.
According to campaign finance filings, Brockman made $25 million in donations to White House, including Trump's Super PAC, MAGA Inc.
Amid the ongoing backlash faced by OpenAI, Claude emerged as No 1 app on the US App Store on Saturday and held the top position till Monday, March 2.
Not only in the United States but also in six other countries including Belgium, Canada, Germany, Luxembourg, Norway, and Switzerland Claude became the No 1 free iPhone app.