Anthropic Claude gains 75% in paid consumers as AI chatbot market shifts from ChatGPT dominance

Anthropic's Claude is winning over paid consumers, a market owned by ChatGPT

Consumers who pay for AI have been increasingly choosing Anthropic's Claude, trend data from credit card transaction analysis company Indagari shows. This is a sign that the AI lab has a wider and healthier set of customers than the niche it is generally considered to command -- enterprise and startup developers using Claude Code. Indagari analyzes billions of anonymized credit card transactions from about 28 million U.S. consumers. So while that data can't give us absolute numbers about Anthropic's revenue or total customers, it is a large enough sampling to spot trends. And the trend, in Anthropic's case, is up and to the right. The data we analyzed covers weekly transactions from 2025 through May 10, 2026, and includes payments for items like subscriptions and API tokens. It shows Claude's paying consumers and revenue growing, month by month, currently up about 75% since January 2026 among this segment. Notably, the gains continued even after the company saw a growth spike from consumers in March, when it refused to allow its models to be used by the Trump Administration for mass surveillance of Americans and autonomous weapons. Another indicator of Claude's growing popularity with consumers comes from DataCamp, an online education platform that teaches AI skills to consumers and business employees, with about 20 million users, it says. Interest in Claude among consumers on DataCamp has exploded since the start of the year. "Claude" is now the most searched term on its site, even more than the term "AI" itself, DataCamp tells TechCrunch. While ChatGPT courses are still far more popular with businesses doing corporate training, among self-directed consumers, demand for Claude courses is outpacing ChatGPT by three to one, the company says. Demand for courses on Claude has increased 18x in the last 30 days alone, it says. Still, while Claude's growth is impressive, ChatGPT is still far and away the most popular AI with consumers, in every way. For instance, recent data from market intelligence firm Sensor Tower shows Claude growing well this year across all platforms, but still a long way behind ChatGPT. While ChatGPT's growth has, the data implies, been more modest of late (largely due to its already enormous reach), it still has many more paying users, the Indagari data indicates. Yet, there's no question that Claude has started to gain on ChatGPT this year in terms of dollars collected from consumers, as well as general consumer awareness and interest. As both OpenAI and Anthropic stand on the threshold of becoming public companies, we're eager for a peek at the legs supporting their businesses. It's especially unclear what impact Anthropic's latest battle with the U.S. government will have on its business. Earlier this month, the government banned Anthropic from allowing its most powerful, cybersecurity-focused models, Mythos 5 and Fable 5, from being used by non-Americans, causing the AI lab to pull them from the market altogether for now. So far, though, every glimpse at data we can find shows Anthropic continuing to grow both its consumer and business/enterprise users.

Claude is winning over paying consumers in a market ChatGPT has owned, credit card data shows

Claude's paying consumers grew 75% since January per credit card data. DataCamp says "Claude" is now its top search term, ahead of "AI." Consumers who pay for AI chatbots are increasingly choosing Anthropic's Claude over competitors, according to new data from credit card transaction analysis firm Indagari. Claude's paying consumer base and revenue have grown roughly 75 percent since January, based on Indagari's analysis of billions of anonymized transactions from about 28 million US consumers. The trend challenges the assumption that Anthropic's strength lies solely in enterprise developers and Claude Code users. The gains continued even after a March spike in sign-ups that followed Anthropic's public refusal to allow its models to be used by the Trump administration for mass surveillance and autonomous weapons. Indagari's data covers weekly transactions from 2025 through mid-May and includes payments for subscriptions and API tokens. While the sample cannot provide absolute revenue figures, it is large enough to spot directional trends, and the direction for Claude is consistently upward. A separate signal comes from DataCamp, an online education platform with about 20 million users. "Claude" is now the most searched term on the site, surpassing even "AI," the company told TechCrunch. Among self-directed consumers, demand for Claude courses is outpacing ChatGPT by three to one, and course demand has increased 18 times in the last 30 days alone. ChatGPT remains far ahead on total users. Sensor Tower data published earlier this month showed Claude growing across all platforms but still trailing ChatGPT by a wide margin, though ChatGPT's market share slipped below 50 percent for the first time in March. ChatGPT crossed one billion monthly users in May, a milestone no other app has reached as quickly. The consumer momentum matters because both Anthropic and OpenAI are preparing to go public. Anthropic filed confidentially for an IPO in June at a valuation approaching $965 billion. Investors examining the prospectus will want to see that growth extends beyond API contracts and into the consumer market where recurring subscription revenue is more predictable. The picture is complicated by Anthropic's ongoing conflict with Washington. The US government ordered Anthropic to shut down its most powerful models, Fable 5 and Mythos 5, earlier this month over a disputed jailbreak, forcing a global shutdown just three days after Fable 5 launched. So far, the clash appears to have helped rather than hurt consumer adoption, echoing the March pattern where controversy drove sign-ups. ChatGPT courses remain far more popular in corporate training programmes on DataCamp, a reminder that enterprise adoption and consumer preference can diverge sharply. ChatGPT also retains new sign-ups better than Claude, according to Sensor Tower, though that gap is closing. Anthropic declined to comment on the Indagari data. The company has not disclosed subscriber numbers publicly, but every independent data source that has examined the question in 2026 points in the same direction: Claude is gaining paying consumers at a rate that no longer looks like a niche.

Anthropic's Claude Is Growing 9 Times Faster Than ChatGPT

Anthropic's Claude has become one of artificial intelligence's fastest-growing platforms, but its surge hasn't come at OpenAI's expense. According to Similarweb, Claude's website traffic has jumped roughly 770% between September 2024 and March 2026. Over the same period, ChatGPT's web visits grew about 84% -- meaning Claude has expanded at roughly nine times the pace of OpenAI's chatbot. On the surface, the numbers suggest Anthropic is rapidly closing the gap. A second dataset, however, tells a very different story. ChatGPT vs Claude: The Overlap New Similarweb audience overlap data shows that the vast majority of Claude users also use ChatGPT in the same month. In contrast, only a relatively small share of ChatGPT users also visit Claude, although that percentage has steadily increased over the past year. Taken together, the two datasets suggest Claude's rapid growth isn't primarily coming from users abandoning ChatGPT. Instead, many users appear to be adding Claude alongside OpenAI's chatbot rather than replacing one with the other. That points to an AI market that is becoming more competitive without necessarily becoming winner-takes-all. Growing the Market Similarweb says the generative AI landscape has evolved from a single-platform market into a genuinely competitive one, with ChatGPT remaining the largest platform while newer entrants continue gaining traction. Claude's traffic growth reflects that shift, even as ChatGPT continues adding users from a much larger base. The broader user figures tell a similar story. ChatGPT is estimated to have around 1 billion monthly active users, while Claude has roughly 56 million, according to industry estimates. That leaves OpenAI with a commanding lead in scale even as Anthropic posts significantly faster percentage growth. The dynamic mirrors many mature technology markets, where challengers often grow much faster than incumbents simply because they start from a much smaller base. The Bigger Picture For investors, the more important takeaway may not be which chatbot is growing the fastest, but how consumers are using them. If users are increasingly relying on multiple AI assistants for different tasks, the competitive landscape looks very different from a traditional winner-takes-all technology battle. That could help explain why companies across the AI ecosystem -- from model developers to cloud providers and semiconductor firms -- continue investing aggressively despite the emergence of several well-funded competitors. Claude's explosive growth shows Anthropic is winning users. The overlap data suggests OpenAI is still winning habits. And in platform businesses, becoming the default destination is often a more durable competitive advantage than posting the fastest growth rate. Photo Courtesy: Primakov on Shutterstock.com Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs To add Benzinga News as your preferred source on Google, click here.

ChatGPT Towers Over Claude With 900 Million Users -- But Anthropic May Be Winning The AI Revenue Race, IDC

While OpenAI's ChatGPT appears to maintain a commanding lead in global AI chatbot usage, new industry estimates suggest Anthropic may be generating more revenue despite serving a fraction of the users. ChatGPT Retains Clear Lead In Global AI Usage According to estimates shared with Benzinga by IDC Research Vice President Arnal Dayaratna, ChatGPT remains the dominant consumer-facing large language model chatbot, with more than 900 million weekly active users worldwide. Dayaratna said OpenAI's business appears to be diversified across consumer subscriptions, workplace seats, APIs and platform usage. IDC estimates OpenAI is generating between $30 billion and $40 billion in annualized revenue, including roughly $10 billion to $13 billion from consumer subscriptions and as much as $20 billion from API and platform-related usage. OpenAI did not immediately respond to Benzinga's request for comments. However, earlier this month, reports indicated that OpenAI generated $5.7 billion in revenue during the first quarter of 2026 while spending approximately $3.7 billion. Reports also said the company's net loss expanded to roughly $39 billion in 2025, compared with about $5 billion the previous year. Anthropic's Enterprise Strategy Drives Revenue Growth Despite trailing significantly in consumer adoption, Anthropic may be outperforming rivals in monetization. IDC estimates Anthropic's annualized revenue is between $40 billion and $50 billion, with consumer subscriptions accounting for less than $2 billion. The firm's revenue appears to be concentrated in enterprise subscriptions, Claude Code seats, API consumption and other high-volume workloads. "Usage scale tells a different story from revenue mix," Dayaratna noted, adding that Claude's business appears far more weighted toward enterprise and developer use cases than consumer adoption. In an emailed statement to Benzinga, Anthropic pointed to a May 2026 blog post announcing that its annualized run-rate revenue had surpassed $47 billion. Counterpoint Research Paints Similar Monetization Picture Separate estimates from Counterpoint Research point to a similar trend. The research firm in April 2026 report estimated Anthropic captured 31.4% of global LLM revenue during the first quarter of 2026, ahead of OpenAI's 29% share. Counterpoint also estimated Anthropic generated the highest average monthly revenue per user in the industry at $33.3, far above OpenAI's $2.2. At the same time, Counterpoint also estimated OpenAI had roughly 900 million monthly active users, compared with approximately 65 million for Anthropic. Anthropic's Rise Challenges OpenAI Both OpenAI and Anthropic have confidentially begun laying the groundwork for potential future public offerings. In May, Anthropic surpassed OpenAI to become the world's most valuable startup after securing a $65 billion Series H funding round that valued the company at $965 billion. Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors. Photo Courtesy: Primakov on Shutterstock.com Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs To add Benzinga News as your preferred source on Google, click here.

OpenAI Leads in AI Users, but Anthropic Appears Ahead in Enterprise Revenue Growth

OpenAI's ChatGPT remains the world's most widely used artificial intelligence chatbot by user numbers. However, new estimates from IDC suggest Anthropic may generate more annual revenue despite serving a much smaller audience. The findings show different business models across the fast-growing AI industry. IDC Research Vice President Arnal Dayaratna estimated that ChatGPT has more than 900 million weekly active users worldwide. The estimate places OpenAI well ahead of other consumer AI chatbot providers. IDC also estimated that Google Gemini serves between 200 million and 250 million weekly active users. Meanwhile, has between 40 million and 60 million weekly active users. These figures show that OpenAI remains the largest consumer-facing AI platform by a wide margin. Dayaratna said OpenAI has built multiple revenue streams across consumer subscriptions, workplace seats, APIs, and platform services. IDC estimates OpenAI generates between $30 billion and $40 billion in annualized revenue. Consumer subscriptions account for about $10 billion to $13 billion, while API and platform services contribute as much as $20 billion. Reports published earlier this month also stated that OpenAI generated $5.7 billion in revenue during the first quarter of 2026 while spending about $3.7 billion. Separate reports added that the company's net loss reached about $39 billion during 2025.