Anthropic’s AI chatbot Claude has recently surged to No. 2 in Apple’s App Store popularity rankings amid a dispute with the U.S. Defense Department, TechCrunch reported on Feb. 28 local time.
Sensor Tower data showed Claude was outside the top 100 through late January, but jumped into the top 20 in February. It ranked No. 6 on Wednesday and No. 4 on Thursday before rising to No. 2 on Saturday. OpenAI’s ChatGPT is currently No. 1, and Google’s Gemini is No. 3.
Anthropic recently demanded safeguards in negotiations with the Pentagon to prevent its AI model from being used for domestic surveillance or autonomous weapons. President Donald Trump rejected this and directed federal agencies to stop using Anthropic products, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth designated Anthropic as a supply-chain threat.
OpenAI, meanwhile, announced an agreement reached through negotiations with the Pentagon that includes safeguards on autonomous weapons and surveillance.
Chi-gyu Hwang
delight@d-today.co.kr