📚 New to this topic? Read our full guide: What Is Artificial Intelligence?.

Anthropic’s Claude Is Winning Paying Users in a Market ChatGPT Owns

Claude is a chatbot. A chatbot is a computer program you can type to, and it answers in plain words. More and more people are now paying to use Claude. For a long time, ChatGPT was the chatbot most paying people picked.

New money data shows that Claude’s income from regular users has gone up about 75% since January 2026. That is a fast jump. Many people once thought Claude was only for coders and big companies. ChatGPT is still much bigger overall. But the money gap from everyday users is starting to shrink.

Anthropic is the company that makes Claude. Its main rival is OpenAI, the company that makes ChatGPT. For years, ChatGPT was the clear winner with people who pay a monthly fee to use a chatbot. Now new data shows Claude is catching up with that same group.

What the spending data shows

A company called Indagari looked at billions of credit card payments. The payments were “anonymized.” That means all the personal details were removed, so no one’s name was shown. The data covered about 28 million people in the United States. It tracked their weekly spending from 2025 up to May 10, 2026.

Here is what they found. The money Claude makes from regular users went up about 75% since January 2026. This is real money from normal people. It is not just big deals with large companies.

Key facts

Detail	Figure
Claude consumer revenue growth	~75% since January 2026
Consumers tracked (Indagari)	~28 million US consumers
Data window	2025 to May 10, 2026
DataCamp course demand jump	18x in last 30 days
Claude vs ChatGPT on DataCamp	3:1 among self-directed learners
DataCamp user base	~20 million users

People are rushing to learn Claude

It is not only about money. People also want to learn how to use Claude. DataCamp is a website where people take online classes. It has about 20 million users. On DataCamp, the number of people wanting Claude classes jumped 18 times in just 30 days.

This was true most of all for “self-directed learners.” These are people who teach themselves, on their own. Among them, Claude is beating ChatGPT by 3 to 1.

One thing is even more surprising. “Claude” is now the word people search for the most on DataCamp. It is searched even more than the word “AI” itself. This shows how many normal learners are thinking about Claude.

ChatGPT still leads overall

Let us be very clear. ChatGPT is still way ahead. It has many more paying users than Claude. Sensor Tower is a company that studies how apps are doing. It says Claude is growing well this year on all platforms. But it adds that Claude is “still a long way behind ChatGPT.” So Claude is catching up. It has not passed ChatGPT.

The timing of this growth is what makes it special. It kept going even after some hard moments. In March 2026, Anthropic said no to letting its models be used for two things. One was mass surveillance, which means watching huge numbers of people. The other was autonomous weapons, which means weapons that act on their own without a person in control.

Then in June 2026, the US government banned two models, Mythos 5 and Fable 5, for people who are not American. A model is the “brain” inside a chatbot that lets it answer you. This ban made the company pull back from some markets. Even with all these problems, more and more people kept wanting Claude. Governments are starting to control who can use these models. We saw this too with GPT-5.6 needing US approval per customer.

Why it matters (especially for India and founders)

For years, the race for AI users looked like a one-horse race. Claude’s rise shows the race is still open. A good product and a clear stand on safety can win paying users. It can do this even against a giant that started first. The company that gets there first is called the “first mover.”

For Indian founders, this is good news. A founder is a person who starts a company. Being late is not the end if your product earns trust and people tell their friends about it. This matters in India too. India is now in talks with the US to get to use Anthropic’s Fable 5 model. And the wish for AI helpers in India is growing fast, as our story on India leading the AI agent race shows.

FAQ

Is Claude now bigger than ChatGPT?

No. ChatGPT still has many more paying users. Claude is growing fast and closing the money gap with everyday users. But it is still well behind overall.

Where does the 75% growth figure come from?

It comes from a company called Indagari. They looked at billions of anonymized credit card payments from about 28 million US users, up to May 10, 2026.

What does the DataCamp data tell us?

The wish for Claude classes went up 18 times in 30 days. And “Claude” is the most-searched word on the site. This shows strong interest from normal learners.

So here is the main point. The race for AI users is closer than it looked. Claude is showing that trust, safety, and a good product can win paying users. It can do this even in a space that ChatGPT has owned for a long time. For the whole industry, this is a healthy sign. No single company owns the future of AI for everyday people.

Source: TechCrunch.