Claude rose from outside top 100 to #2 in the App Store rankings
The ranking increase followed public attention from Pentagon negotiations
Anthropic had sought safeguards against mass surveillance and autonomous weapons
The company faced government backlash including being designated a supply-chain threat
📖 Full Retelling
Anthropic's Claude chatbot has risen to become the second most popular free application in Apple's US App Store as of Saturday afternoon, February 28, 2026, benefiting from increased public attention following the company's contentious negotiations with the Pentagon over AI safeguards. The climb in rankings has been particularly dramatic, as data from SensorTower reveals Claude was positioned just outside the top 100 at the end of January and had spent most of February somewhere in the top 20 before its recent surge. The chatbot jumped from sixth place on Wednesday to fourth on Thursday and ultimately secured the number two position on Saturday, sandwiched between OpenAI's ChatGPT in first place and Google's Gemini in third. This upward trajectory follows a period of intense scrutiny when Anthropic attempted to negotiate safeguards preventing the Department of Defense from using its AI models for mass domestic surveillance or fully autonomous weapons, which triggered significant backlash from the Trump administration.
🏷️ Themes
AI Competition, Government Relations, Public Perception
# Anthropic PBC
**Anthropic PBC** is an American artificial intelligence (AI) safety and research company headquartered in San Francisco, California. Established as a public-benefit corporation, the organization focuses on the development of frontier artificial intelligence systems with a primary e...
An app store, also called an app marketplace or app catalog, is a type of digital distribution platform for computer software called applications, often in a mobile context. Apps provide a specific set of functions which, by definition, do not include the running of the computer itself. Complex soft...
In geometry, a pentagon (from Greek πέντε (pente) 'five' and γωνία (gonia) 'angle') is any five-sided polygon or 5-gon. The sum of the internal angles in a simple pentagon is 540°.
A pentagon may be simple or self-intersecting.
In Brief Posted: 1:05 PM PST · February 28, 2026 Anthony Ha Anthropic’s Claude rises to No. 2 in the App Store following Pentagon dispute Anthropic’s chatbot Claude seems to have benefited from the attention around the company’s fraught negotiations with the Pentagon. As first reported by CNBC , as of Saturday afternoon, Claude is currently ranked number two among free apps in Apple’s US App Store — the number one app is OpenAI’s ChatGPT, and number three is Google Gemini. According to data from SensorTower , Claude was just outside the top 100 at the end of January, and has spent most of February somewhere in the top 20. Its ranking has climbed in the last few days, from sixth on Wednesday to fourth on Thursday to second on Saturday . After Anthropic attempted to negotiate for safeguards preventing the Department of Defense from using its AI models for mass domestic surveillance or fully autonomous weapons, President Donald Trump directed federal agencies to stop using all Anthropic products and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said he’s designating the company a supply-chain threat . OpenAI subsequently announced its own agreement with the Pentagon , which CEO Sam Altman claimed includes safeguards related to domestic surveillance and autonomous weapons. Topics AI , Government & Policy October 13-15 San Francisco, CA Last Hours: Save up to $680 on your pass before 11:59 p.m. tonight. Meet investors. Discover your next portfolio company. Hear from 250+ tech leaders , dive into 200+ sessions , and explore 300+ startups building what’s next. Don’t miss these one-time savings. REGISTER NOW Newsletters See More Subscribe for the industry’s biggest tech news TechCrunch Daily News Every weekday and Sunday, you can get the best of TechCrunch’s coverage. TechCrunch Mobility TechCrunch Mobility is your destination for transportation news and insight. Startups Weekly Startups are the core of TechCrunch, so get our best coverage delivered weekly. StrictlyVC Provides movers a...
