Anthropic's Claude chatbot has risen to No. 1 on the App Store, pushing aside ChatGPT. Its popularity is surging despite a dispute with the Pentagon, with daily new sign-ups repeatedly hitting record highs, TechCrunch reported on Saturday local time.
According to market research firm Sensor Tower, Claude was outside the top 100 on the App Store in late January. It then climbed rapidly in February and ranked first on Feb. 28. This was the first time since April last year that ChatGPT has been knocked off the top spot. An Anthropic spokesperson said new sign-ups hit all-time highs throughout this week, the number of free users rose 60 percent from January and paid subscribers more than doubled.
Anthropic is locked in a dispute with the government in negotiations with the Pentagon, demanding safeguards to prevent its AI model from being used for mass surveillance or autonomous weapons. The dispute is intensifying as President Donald Trump bans the use of all Anthropic products. After that, OpenAI signed a separate agreement with the Pentagon, further fuelling the controversy.
Chi-gyu Hwang
delight@d-today.co.kr