OpenAI replaced Anthropic on a Pentagon deal worth up to $200 million, but in doing so, it may have handed its biggest rival a victory by pushing them to the top of the App Store.
Anthropic’s Claude climbed to the No. 1 spot on Apple’s App Store over the weekend, dethroning ChatGPT just days after OpenAI CEO Sam Altman announced his company had supplanted Anthropic by striking a nine-figure deal with the U.S. Department of War.
Before the release of Anthropic’s Super Bowl ads—which took a dig at OpenAI’s move to include ads in ChatGPT—Anthropic was ranked 42nd on Apple’s App Store. Since then it has remained in the top 10 most downloaded apps, but OpenAI’s Pentagon contract may have helped push it into the top spot over the weekend. Claude stood at No. 5, compared with No. 2 for ChatGPT, on the Google Play store as of Monday.
ChatGPT users protested OpenAI’s Pentagon contract online in recent days by spreading the message to “Cancel ChatGPT” across Reddit and X. Some users posted guides for deleting ChatGPT accounts and migrating to Claude. Others accused OpenAI of opportunism, pointing out Altman had previously supported Anthropic’s stand, before signing the deal Anthropic rejected.
As Claude seized the top spot, ChatGPT fell to second, and Google’s Gemini lagged behind in fourth place on the App Store. Since the start of the year, free active users on Claude have increased by over 60%, and daily sign-ups have quadrupled.
