Anthropic’s AI assistant, Claude, shot to the No. 1 spot on Apple’s (APPL) U.S. free app rankings on Saturday, surpassing competitors like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s (GOOGL) Gemini, in downloads. The surge coincides with ongoing tensions between Anthropic and the Pentagon, stemming from the company’s refusal to ease its safety regulations.
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Claude AI Overtakes ChatGPT on App Store
According to the analytics firm, Sensor Tower, Anthropic’s Claude has surged in the U.S. App Store rankings in recent weeks, climbing from No. 131 on Jan. 30 to the top 20 for much of February. The app surged over the past week, moving from sixth on Wednesday to fourth on Thursday, then hitting No. 1 on Saturday, while ChatGPT fell to second and Gemini ranked fourth.
This came a day after the U.S. Department of War designated Anthropic a national security “supply-chain risk” for refusing to allow Claude’s use in mass domestic surveillance or fully autonomous weapons. In response to the heightened attention from both the Pentagon’s statement and the app’s ranking, Anthropic reported a 60% increase in free user accounts, with daily sign-ups tripled since November, and paid subscriptions more than doubled in 2026.
Anthropic’s Growth Trajectory Sets the Stage
Claude’s surge comes on the heels of an accelerating firm. On Feb. 12, Anthropic closed a $30 billion Series G round led by GIC and Coatue, valuing the company at $380 billion, the second-largest private venture deal behind OpenAI’s $40 billion-plus raise in 2025. Anthropic’s annualized revenue run rate stood at $14 billion at the time of the raise, growing more than 10x annually for three consecutive years.
Anthropic’s AI coding tool, Claude Code, also reached $2.5 billion in annualized revenue in February 2026, more than doubling since January. Following its Super Bowl LX commercials, data showed Claude climbing into the top 10 On App Store. With the release of its Opius 4.6 model, over 300,000 business customers, and enterprise spending up sevenfold in the past year, the company is poised for strong growth. The impact of the Pentagon dispute on its business remains uncertain.
Is Claude AI Better than ChatGPT?
Claude and ChatGPT excel in different areas rather than one being strictly “better” overall. Claude excels at complex reasoning, long-form documents, and coding, thanks to its larger context window, while ChatGPT is faster, more versatile, and supports features such as image and video generation. Choice depends on the task: use Claude for in-depth analysis and large projects, and ChatGPT for creative work, quick queries, or multimodal needs.
