Claude is still widely associated with enterprise buyers, startup developers, and Claude Code users. But new consumer signals suggest Anthropic's assistant is becoming more than a specialist tool for technical teams.
Data cited by TechCrunch points to a clear pattern: more consumers are paying for Claude, searching for Claude, and taking courses about Claude. ChatGPT remains the dominant consumer AI product, but Claude appears to be narrowing part of the gap in paid interest.
What the spending data shows
The strongest signal comes from Indagari, a credit card transaction analysis company. Indagari analyzes billions of anonymized credit card transactions from about 28 million U.S. consumers, which gives it a large sample for spotting changes in payment behavior.
The data cannot reveal Anthropic's total revenue or exact customer count. It does, however, show movement among consumers who are paying for AI-related products such as subscriptions and API tokens.
According to the source, the analyzed weekly transaction data covers 2025 through May 10, 2026. Within that segment, Claude's paying consumers and revenue have grown month by month and are currently up about 75% since January 2026.
That growth matters because it suggests Claude's consumer base is not only reacting to one short burst of attention. The source notes that the gains continued after a March spike, when Anthropic refused to allow its models to be used by the Trump administration for mass surveillance of Americans and autonomous weapons.
Claude interest is also showing up in education
Consumer demand is not visible only in payment data. DataCamp, an online education platform that teaches AI skills to consumers and business employees, says it has about 20 million users and has seen a major shift in what people are searching for.
DataCamp told TechCrunch that "Claude" is now the most searched term on its site, ahead of the term "AI." That is a notable signal because education platforms often reflect what users want to learn next, not just what they already use.
The split between businesses and self-directed learners is also important. ChatGPT courses are still far more popular with businesses doing corporate training. Among self-directed consumers, however, DataCamp says demand for Claude courses is outpacing ChatGPT by three to one.
DataCamp also says demand for courses on Claude has increased 18x in the last 30 days alone. That does not prove Claude has overtaken ChatGPT in the broader market, but it does show that consumer curiosity around Claude has accelerated quickly.
ChatGPT still leads the consumer AI market
The source is clear on one point: Claude's growth does not mean it has passed ChatGPT. ChatGPT remains far and away the most popular AI with consumers, in every way described in the article.
Recent data from market intelligence firm Sensor Tower shows Claude growing well this year across all platforms, but still far behind ChatGPT. The same broad picture appears in the Indagari data, which indicates that ChatGPT still has many more paying users.
That gap is partly a matter of scale. The source says ChatGPT's recent growth appears more modest, largely because its reach is already enormous. In other words, slower growth from a much larger base does not necessarily mean weakness.
The more relevant point is that Claude is gaining consumer awareness, paid usage, and dollars collected from consumers at the same time. For Anthropic, that combination could make the company look less dependent on one narrow customer category.
Why this matters for Anthropic and OpenAI
The consumer AI market is important because it can reveal how durable public demand is for major AI products. Business and enterprise use may be central to Anthropic's reputation, but consumer payments and education demand show whether ordinary users are choosing Claude directly.
The timing also matters. The source notes that OpenAI and Anthropic are on the threshold of becoming public companies. In that context, investors, customers, and competitors have reason to examine what supports each company's business.
For Anthropic, the picture includes both momentum and uncertainty. The source says it is 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. Anthropic pulled those models from the market altogether for now.
Even with that uncertainty, the available data cited in the source points in the same direction. Anthropic appears to be growing among both consumer users and business or enterprise users, while Claude is gaining more attention from people who pay for and learn about AI tools.
The bottom line
Claude is not replacing ChatGPT as the top consumer AI product based on the data presented. ChatGPT remains larger across the market and still has many more paying users.
But Claude's recent paid consumer growth is meaningful because it broadens the story around Anthropic. The company is not only attracting developers and enterprise users; it is also building visible traction among consumers who are willing to spend money, search for training, and treat Claude as a serious AI tool.