ChatGPT uninstalls surged by 295% after DoD deal

U.S. app uninstalls of ChatGPT’s mobile app jumped 295% day-over-day on Saturday, February 28, as consumers responded to the news of OpenAI’s deal with the Department of Defense (DoD), which has been rebranded under the Trump administration as the Department of War. This data, which comes from market intelligence provider Sensor Tower, represents a sizable increase compared with ChatGPT’s typical day-over-day uninstall rate of 9%, as measured over the past 30 days. Meanwhile, U.S. downloads for OpenAI competitor Anthropic’s Claude jumped up by 37% day-over-day on Friday, February 27, and 51% as of Saturday, February 28, after the company announced that it would not partner with the U.S. defense department. Anthropic said it was not able to agree on the deal terms over concerns that AI would be used to surveil Americans and be used in fully autonomous weaponry, which AI is not yet ready to do safely. A set of consumers seemingly favored Anthropic’s position on the matter, the data suggests. In addition, ChatGPT’s download growth was impacted by the news of its DoD partnership, with its U.S. downloads dropping by 13% day-over-day on Saturday, shortly after the news of its deal went public. Those downloads continued to fall on Sunday, when they were down by 5% day-over-day. (Before the partnership was announced, the app’s downloads had grown 14% day-over-day on Friday.) These rapid changes were also reflected in Claude’s App Store ranking, as the app hit No. 1 on the U.S. App Store on Saturday, where it continues to sit as of Monday, March 2. That’s a jump of over 20 ranks compared with roughly a week before (February 22, 2026). Consumers are also sharing their opinions about OpenAI’s deal in the app’s ratings, where 1-star reviews for ChatGPT surged 775% on Saturday, then grew 100% day-over-day on Sunday, Sensor Tower said. Five-star reviews declined during the same period, dropping by 50%. Other third-party data providers back up Sensor Tower’s findings. Appfigures, for instance, noted that Claude’s total daily U.S. downloads on Saturday surpassed those of ChatGPT for the first time. It also saw the U.S. downloads of Claude increase, but its estimates put that figure even higher: by 88% day-over-day on Saturday. Image Credits:Appfigures It noted that Claude is now the No. 1 free iPhone app in several countries, including Belgium, Canada, Germany, Luxembourg, Norway, Switzerland, and the U.S. A third market intelligence provider, Similarweb, said that Claude’s U.S. downloads over the past week were around 20x what they were in January, but that could be because of other reasons beyond the political issues, it cautioned. Topics AI, Anthropic, Apps, ChatGPT, Claude, department of defense, Exclusive, OpenAI Sarah Perez Consumer News Editor Sarah has worked as a reporter for TechCrunch since August 2011. She joined the company after having previously spent over three years at ReadWriteWeb. Prior to her work as a reporter, Sarah worked in I.T. across a number of industries, including banking, retail and software. You can contact or verify outreach from Sarah by emailing sarahp@techcrunch.com or via encrypted message at sarahperez.01 on Signal.

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