Claude is experiencing a significant surge in daily active users and new app installations on mobile devices, a trend that closely follows Anthropic's recent dispute with the Pentagon. This escalation began after Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei publicly refused to permit the U.S. government to deploy its AI systems for mass surveillance of Americans or to power fully autonomous weapons. In response, the AI model provider behind Claude was subsequently labeled a "supply-chain risk." However, data indicates that Anthropic's firm stance has resonated positively with many consumers, leading them to favor the Claude model.
According to Appfigures, an app intelligence provider, U.S. downloads of Claude’s mobile application are consistently outperforming those of ChatGPT. The most recent estimates from March 2 show Claude registering 149,000 daily downloads, compared to ChatGPT’s 124,000 daily downloads.
While download figures offer an initial glimpse into the number of new users installing an app, active user metrics provide a deeper insight into actual engagement and sustained usage.
On this front, Similarweb, another prominent market intelligence provider, reported that Claude's app on both iOS and Android devices recorded 11.3 million daily active users on March 2. This represents a remarkable 183% increase from approximately 4 million daily active users at the start of the year, and a substantial rise from 5 million daily active users observed at the beginning of February.
This rapid growth in daily active users has propelled Claude ahead of other AI apps such as Perplexity and Microsoft Copilot. However, it still trails behind top rivals like ChatGPT. This is partly attributable to Claude's significant jump in usage commencing later in the month, coinciding with news surrounding Anthropic's tense negotiations with the Pentagon. Should these positive trends continue throughout March, Claude could achieve an even higher ranking.
It is important to note that ChatGPT continues to dominate the market by a considerable margin, boasting 250.5 million daily active users across iOS and Android devices on March 2.
Similarweb also highlighted a concurrent increase in Claude’s web traffic.
Despite remaining significantly behind other leading AI providers in terms of overall web traffic, Claude's web traffic grew by 43% month-over-month in February and an impressive 297.7% year-over-year. A portion of this growth may be occurring at the expense of ChatGPT, whose web traffic saw a 6.5% month-over-month decline during the same period. Gemini also experienced a modest 2.1% increase, though this growth was slower compared to previous months.
Anthropic itself has actively promoted Claude’s progress, announcing that its AI chatbot is now attracting over 1 million new sign-ups daily. This surge follows its achievement of becoming the No. 1 application on the U.S. App Store over the past weekend, a position it continues to hold. The app has also secured the top spot in 15 other countries, including Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Singapore, Switzerland, and the U.K.
The company further noted that Claude has consistently broken its own daily signup record every day since early last week, across every country where the AI is available.
Conversely, an earlier report indicated a growing trend in uninstalls for ChatGPT’s application.
Anthropic was contacted for comment regarding these developments, but a statement was not available by the time of publication.
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