Claude by Anthropic has been the most downloaded app on iPhone in the past few days, knocking OpenAI’s ChatGPT from the top spot.
The change comes after a well-known battle between Anthropic and the Department of Defense, which sparked public interest in Cloud’s AI tools.
As spotted by CNBC, Anthropic’s tool took the top spot on the US free apps chart late on Saturday, February 28. It remained there as of the morning of Monday, March 2, with ChatGPT in second place and Google Gemini in third place.
App analytics company SensorTower reports that Cloud was not among 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 ranks seventh. According to an Anthropic spokesperson speaking to TechCrunch, Claude broke records over the past week. Free users have grown more than 60 percent since January, and Cloud has doubled its paid users year-over-year, he said.
President Donald Trump said on Friday that he is ordering every US government agency to stop using Anthropic’s equipment. This came after Anthropic refused to allow the Department of Defense to use its AI models without assurances that they would not be used for fully autonomous weapons or large-scale 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 classified U.S. government networks, Anthropic has supported the U.S. warfighter since June 2024 and has every intention of doing so.”
Recommended by our editors
This tweet is currently unavailable. It may be loading or may have been removed.
OpenAI moved forward with a contract for the US government to use ChatGPT’s AI models in classified networks. “The safety and broad distribution of the benefits of AI is central to our mission,” said Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI.
He continued, “Two of our most important security principles are domestic mass surveillance and the prohibition of human responsibility for the use of force, including for autonomous weapons systems. The DoW agrees with these principles, reflects them in law and policy, and we incorporate them into our agreement.”
Disclosure: Ziff Davis, parent company of PCMag, Filed a case against OpenAI in April 2025, alleging that it infringed Ziff Davis’ copyrights in training and running its AI systems.
Get our best stories!
Your daily dose of our top tech news
By clicking Sign Up, you confirm that you are 16+ and that you agree to our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
Thanks for signing up!
Your membership has been confirmed. Keep an eye on your inbox!
About our expert
Experience
I have been a journalist for over a decade, having started in tech reporting in 2013. I joined PCMag in 2025, where I cover the latest developments in tech, writing about the gadgets and services you use every day. Be sure to send me any suggestions you think would be of interest to PCMag.
Read full bio
