Anthropic’s Claude gains ground on ChatGPT in paid consumer market
▼ Summary
– Paying consumer usage of Anthropic’s Claude has grown about 75% since January 2026, based on credit card transaction data from Indagari.
– Claude’s growth spiked in March 2026 after Anthropic refused to let its models be used for mass surveillance and autonomous weapons by the Trump administration.
– On DataCamp, “Claude” is now the most searched term, exceeding “AI,” and demand for Claude courses among self-directed consumers outpaces ChatGPT by three to one.
– Despite Claude’s gains, ChatGPT remains far more popular with consumers and has many more paying users overall.
– The U.S. government banned Anthropic’s powerful models Mythos 5 and Fable 5 from non-American use, but the company’s consumer and business growth continues.
Consumer spending on AI tools is increasingly shifting toward Anthropic’s Claude, according to fresh trend data from Indagari, a firm that analyzes anonymized credit card transactions from roughly 28 million U.S. consumers. While the data doesn’t reveal Anthropic’s exact revenue or total customer count, the sample is large enough to identify clear directional shifts.
And the direction for Claude is unmistakably upward.
Indagari examined weekly transaction data from 2025 through May 10, 2026, covering payments for subscriptions and API tokens. The analysis shows Claude’s paying consumer base and revenue have grown month over month, climbing roughly 75% since January 2026 within this segment. Notably, this momentum persisted even after a consumer growth spike in March, when Anthropic refused to let the Trump administration use its models for mass surveillance of Americans or autonomous weapons.
Additional evidence of Claude’s rising consumer appeal comes from DataCamp, an online education platform with about 20 million users. Since the start of the year, interest in Claude among self-directed learners has surged. “Claude” is now the most searched term on DataCamp’s site, surpassing even the term “AI,” the company reports. While ChatGPT courses remain far more popular for corporate training, demand for Claude courses among individual consumers outpaces ChatGPT by three to one. In the last 30 days alone, demand for Claude-related courses has increased 18x.
Still, ChatGPT remains the dominant consumer AI by a wide margin. Sensor Tower data shows Claude growing well across all platforms this year, but still trailing ChatGPT significantly. Indagari’s data similarly indicates that while ChatGPT’s growth has moderated (largely due to its enormous existing reach), it still commands many more paying users.
Yet there is no denying that Claude has begun to close the gap with ChatGPT in terms of consumer dollars, awareness, and interest this year.
As both OpenAI and Anthropic approach potential public offerings, the strength of their consumer and enterprise foundations is under increasing scrutiny. The impact of Anthropic’s latest confrontation with the U. S. government remains unclear. Earlier this month, the government banned Anthropic from allowing its most powerful cybersecurity-focused models, Mythos 5 and Fable 5, to be used by non-Americans, prompting the company to pull them from the market entirely.
So far, however, every available data point suggests Anthropic is continuing to grow its consumer and enterprise user base. Anthropic declined to comment.
(Source: TechCrunch)
