Uninstalls of the ChatGPT application in the United States rose by 295 per cent on Saturday, according to data from analytics firm Sensor Tower. The increase followed the announcement of a partnership between OpenAI and the United States Department of Defense.
Prior to the announcement, the application had recorded daily uninstall rates of around 9 per cent. The spike coincided with public reaction to the cooperation with the Department of Defense, which under the Trump administration has been renamed the Department of War.
Download and uninstall trends
At the same time, downloads of the competing Claude application by Anthropic increased by 37 per cent on Friday and by 51 per cent on Saturday, after the company announced that it would not cooperate with the Department of Defense.
According to the data, ChatGPT downloads in the United States fell by 13 per cent on Saturday and by a further 5 per cent on Sunday. On the preceding Friday, before the announcement, downloads had risen by 14 per cent.
App Store ratings also shifted. One-star reviews increased by 775 per cent on Saturday and by 100 per cent on Sunday, while five-star ratings declined by 50 per cent.
Anthropic stance and market response
Anthropic cited concerns about the use of artificial intelligence in surveillance of Americans and in autonomous weapons systems, stating that the technology is not yet ready to be used safely in such contexts.
Data indicate that a number of consumers appear to support that position. Claude reached number one on the US App Store on Saturday, surpassing ChatGPT in downloads for the first time.
Other analytics companies, including Appfigures and Similarweb, confirmed the trend, reporting a significant rise in Claude downloads, in some cases up to 20 times higher than in January. However, they noted that the increase may also be influenced by factors beyond political developments.
Source: TechCrunch