Claude by Anthropic is the most downloaded app on iPhone over the last few days, knocking OpenAI’s ChatGPT from the top spot.
The change comes after a publicized battle between Anthropic and the Department of Defense, which sparked greater public interest in Claude’s AI tools.
As spotted by CNBC, Anthropic’s tool took the top spot on the US free apps chart late on Saturday, Feb. 28. It has remained there into the early hours of Monday, March 2, with ChatGPT in second place and Google Gemini in third.
App analytics company SensorTower reports that Claude wasn’t in the top 100 free apps on iPhone before the end of January, then climbed the rankings throughout February. The brand also began advertising more aggressively, including a Super Bowl spot, which may have increased interest.
The app is also gaining steam on Android, where it sits in position seven. According to an Anthropic spokesperson speaking to News, Claude broke its records throughout the last week. They said free users have increased by more than 60% since January, and that Claude has doubled its paid subscriber base over the year.
President Donald Trump said on Friday he was ordering every US government agency to stop using tools from Anthropic. This came after Anthropic refused to allow the Department of Defense to use its AI models without assurances that they wouldn’t be used to power fully autonomous weapons or mass domestic surveillance.
In a statement on Feb. 27, Anthropic said, “We are deeply saddened by these developments. As the first frontier AI company to deploy models in the US government’s classified networks, Anthropic has supported American warfighters since June 2024 and has every intention of continuing to do so.”
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OpenAI moved ahead with an agreement for the US government to use ChatGPT’s AI models within classified networks. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said, “AI safety and wide distribution of benefits are the core of our mission.”
He continued, “Two of our most important safety principles are prohibitions on domestic mass surveillance and human responsibility for the use of force, including for autonomous weapon systems. The DoW agrees with these principles, reflects them in law and policy, and we put them into our agreement.”
Disclosure: Ziff Davis, PCMag’s parent company, filed a lawsuit against OpenAI in April 2025, alleging it infringed Ziff Davis copyrights in training and operating its AI systems.
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