Anthropic's Claude subscribers rising amid feud with US government
29 Mar 2026

Anthropic, the artificial intelligence (AI) company behind the Claude chatbot, is witnessing a surge in popularity among consumers.

This comes amid its ongoing feud with the US Department of Defense (DoD) and clever Super Bowl ads targeting OpenAI.

An analysis of billions of anonymized credit card transactions from around 28 million US consumers by Indagari for TechCrunch shows that Claude is gaining paid subscribers at an unprecedented rate.

Claude subscriptions more than doubled
Data constraints

The data analyzed by Indagari, a consumer transaction analysis company, is substantial but not comprehensive.

It doesn't account for all consumers or include Claude's enterprise business and free-tier users.

Despite these limitations, the data shows a significant increase in paid subscriptions for Claude this year, more than doubling.

Most new subscribers are on the lowest tier, "Pro," which costs $20 per month compared to higher tiers costing $100 or $200 per month.

Super Bowl ads push ad-free Claude
Marketing impact

Anthropic's Super Bowl commercials, which mocked ChatGPT for showing ads to its users, have contributed to the increased awareness of Claude.

The company promised that Claude would never show ads, making the spots both funny and effective.

However, a bigger controversy erupted in late January when several media outlets reported on a growing feud between Anthropic and the DoD over the military's potential use of Anthropic's AI models for lethal autonomous operations or mass surveillance.

DoD feud escalates with CEO Amodei
Legal battles

The feud escalated with Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei issuing a public statement on February 26, amid the DoD's threats to hurt Anthropic's business by labeling it a supply risk.

Despite the legal battles, which include lawsuits now flying between both parties, new user growth for Claude has continued to rise sharply during this period.

This increase is especially noticeable between late January media reports and Amodei's February 26 statement.

Claude Code and Cowork drive growth
Product innovation

Along with the ongoing controversy, new features like Claude Code and Claude Cowork have also contributed to the surge in subscriptions. These productivity tools were released in January.

The Computer Use feature, which lets Claude navigate a computer independently by clicking, scrolling, and taking actions on its own, has also contributed to this growth.