Whatever the final outcome for Anthropic from its feud with the Department of Defense, the attention it has generated has made the company more popular with consumers than ever. This surge in popularity is also attributed to the company’s funny Super Bowl ads, which took aim at OpenAI, and the rising popularity of Claude Code.
An examination of billions of anonymized credit card transactions from about 28 million U.S. consumers shows Claude gaining paid subscribers in record numbers. Now, as with all big-data analysis, caveats exist. While this data is substantive, it does not include every consumer. That means the analysis cannot calculate Anthropic’s total current or new user numbers. It also does not include Claude’s enterprise business, which is its bread and butter, or its free-tier users. Estimates for total Claude consumer users are wide-ranging, but Anthropic has not disclosed this data. A spokesperson did confirm, however, that Claude paid subscriptions have more than doubled this year.
What is notable is that consumers pulled out their wallets in record numbers for Claude between January and February. Also interesting, previous users returned to Claude in record numbers in February as well. The majority of new subscribers are at its lowest tier, “Pro” users, which costs $20 per month. Data through early March confirms that this subscriber growth is continuing.
To recap why consumers may have become so much more aware of Claude since January: Anthropic released several Super Bowl commercials that mocked ChatGPT’s decision to show ads to its users and promised Claude would never do the same. The spots were funny and effective.
But the bigger hullabaloo began in late January when multiple media sites began reporting on a deepening feud between Anthropic and the DoD. At its core, the dispute was about what the military could and couldn’t do with Anthropic’s AI. Anthropic refused to allow the DoD to use its AI models for lethal autonomous operations or mass surveillance of American citizens. That disagreement grew increasingly public, with Anthropic’s CEO issuing a firm public statement on February 26 amid the DoD’s threats. Lawsuits are now flying, although a federal judge this week temporarily blocked the department’s designation. New user growth climbed sharply during this period.
Beyond the drama, Claude Code and Claude Cowork, developer and productivity tools released in January, have been drivers of subscriptions. The Computer Use feature, released recently, has also sparked a surge. That feature allows Claude to navigate a computer independently. These features are not available to free-tier users.
Still, for all of Anthropic’s growth among U.S. consumers willing to pay for AI, Claude remains a long way behind ChatGPT. While OpenAI’s uninstalls spiked immediately after it announced a deal with the DoD, data shows that OpenAI is still gaining new paid subscribers at a rapid rate and remains the biggest consumer AI platform of them all.