Anthropic's Super Bowl commercials, which humorously depict people turning to chatbots for advice only to be redirected toward "cougar" dating platforms and height-enhancing shoe inserts, have proven effective. Following the ads, the company's AI assistant Claude jumped from the 41st position on the U.S. App Store into the top ten. By Friday, Claude reached its peak rank at number seven, indicating that its promise of being ad-free strongly appeals to users.

Recent figures from market intelligence firm Appfigures show Claude's estimated U.S. downloads across iOS and Android reached about 148,000 from Sunday through Tuesday—the latest data available. This represents a 32% rise compared to the previous three days, Thursday through Saturday, when downloads were around 112,000.

From Sunday to Tuesday, Claude averaged 49,200 daily downloads, a 32% increase over the typical Sunday-through-Tuesday average of 37,400 per day. The data implies that Anthropic’s Super Bowl campaign, along with the recent launch of its new Opus 4.6 model, successfully drew focus to Claude’s app and its main distinction from ChatGPT. Coinciding with Anthropic’s ad warnings, ChatGPT introduced advertisements to free users this same week. Consequently, Claude’s app is attracting greater interest now than when it first launched on mobile.

The consumer AI app debuted on iOS in May 2024 to a relatively lukewarm response. ChatGPT had already established a presence on mobile devices, accumulating close to half a million installs in its first five days. In contrast, Claude garnered just 157,000 global downloads in its initial week and never climbed above 55th place on the U.S. App Store.

Globally, Claude also experienced growth this past week. Total worldwide downloads across the App Store and Google Play increased by 15% from Sunday to Tuesday compared to the prior Thursday through Saturday. However, Appfigures highlighted that this global uptick was less than half the gains observed in the United States.