3 min readNew DelhiUpdated: Mar 3, 2026 08:42 AM IST
OpenAI’s recent deal with the Department of Defence (DoD), now renamed as the Department of War, has spiralled down with many uninstalling the AI company’s popular chatbot – ChatGPT. Reportedly, on February 28, following the news of the deal, consumers reacted by uninstalling ChatGPT’s mobile app. The collective uninstallation amounted to 295 per cent.
According to data shared by market intelligence firm Sensor Tower, there has been a considerable increase when compared to the chatbot’s usual day-over-day uninstall rate, which was around 9 per cent based on the last 30 days.
On the other hand, in the US, downloads of OpenAI’s rival Anthropic Claude surged by 37 per cent and 51 per cent on February 27 and February 28, respectively. This was after the Dario Amodei-led company declared that it would not tie up with the US defence department. The company had said that it was against the use of AI to surveil Americans and in fully autonomous weapons. Amodei insisted that AI is not ready yet to be used safely for these use cases.
Following Anthropic’s rift with the US government which had later declared it a ‘supply chain risk’, social media was abuzz with many users backing Amodei’s decision. Meanwhile, Sam Altman, who announced OpenAI’s partnership with the government hours later, was subjected to criticism as well.
“Tonight, we reached an agreement with the Department of War to deploy our models in their classified network. In all of our interactions, the DoW displayed a deep respect for safety and a desire to partner to achieve the best possible outcome,” Altman tweeted after reaching the agreement.
Several consumers reportedly shared their opinions in the app rating section, with a 775 per cent increase in 1-star ratings on Saturday and 100 per cent on Sunday. Similarly, 5-star ratings plummeted by 50 per cent.
Ever since the DoD partnership, ChatGPT’s download in the US has been going down with 13 per cent day-over-day on Saturday. It continued to fall with 5 per cent uninstalls on Sunday. On the other hand, Claude hit the No. 1 spot on the US App Store on Saturday. Claude was 20 ranks behind a week earlier.
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