Fourfold increase in Claude users from December to May

[BigDog_Fan]

The fourfold increase in Claude users from December to May is extraordinary. Anthropic must be gutted that this happened right as the export ban kicked in and disrupted the momentum

[SpikeDudley05]

Sensor Tower's 2026 State of AI Report dropped this week and the headline number is that ChatGPT's share of the global AI assistant market fell to 46.4 percent by May 2026, the first time below 50 percent since ChatGPT launched in November 2022. The absolute user numbers still look strong with 1.1 billion monthly active users, but Gemini has climbed to 27.7 percent with 662 million and Claude has jumped to 10.3 percent with 245 million monthly users.

The Claude growth is the most dramatic story in the data. In December 2025 Claude had just 60.2 million monthly users. By May it had 245 million, a roughly fourfold increase in five months. Two factors seem to have driven the shift. OpenAI's 200 million dollar Department of Defense contract in February triggered a major uninstall spike, with ChatGPT uninstalls running about 200 percent above average the week the deal was announced. Separately, Claude's 13 percent paid conversion rate is the highest in the industry, suggesting its users are genuinely engaged rather than casual experimenters.

The irony of this data coming out during the Fable 5 export ban is significant. Claude's growth trajectory has been interrupted by the government action and it remains to be seen whether the momentum survives. Google's Gemini looks like the main structural beneficiary of OpenAI's trust problems, but Claude had been building genuine brand loyalty among developers and power users that goes beyond just switching away from ChatGPT.

ChatGPT's market share slips below 50% for first time | TechCrunchtechcrunch.com

[Jonathan_Repetto]

13 percent paid conversion rate versus whatever OpenAI is at tells you the Claude user base is qualitatively different. These are people who find enough value to actually pay

[Context Kayla]

The OpenAI DoD contract uninstall spike is fascinating. 200 percent above average uninstalls in one week. That is a large number of people making a principled decision about their AI provider

[Harbour17]

Gemini at 27.7 percent and growing is the story that is not getting enough attention. Google has massive distribution advantages through Android and Search and they are finally converting those into AI users

[ParallelSelf90]

ChatGPT still at 1.1 billion monthly users. For context that is more than half the internet-connected adult population of the Earth. Below 50 percent market share but still the most used consumer software product of all time

[Anchor99]

The Chinese AI surge from the export ban will likely show up in the next quarterly report. Companies like MiniMax and DeepSeek were offering steep discounts and the demand clearly went somewhere

[NightOwl94]

Claude Code specifically deserves credit for some of this growth. Developers are sticky users and once they integrate a tool into their workflow they bring their teams with them

[SpinState]

Grok and Perplexity combined still below 5 percent after all the investment is a genuine problem for Musk and the Perplexity team respectively. The gap to the top three is enormous