Anthropic’s AI chatbot Claude had a bit of a rough moment on Monday. Even while sitting comfortably as the No.1 free app on Apple’s App Store, the platform was dealing with what the company called “elevated errors.”
Yeah kind of ironic, right? The most downloaded app… but not working perfectly.
According to Anthropic’s status page, the issue was mainly tied to Claude Opus 4.6, the company’s newest AI model that launched just last month. Users noticed slower responses and occasional glitches across several parts of the service.
Performance Issues Hit Multiple Claude Services
The problems weren’t limited to just one place.
Claude’s main website (claude.ai), its developer console, and even Claude Code experienced hiccups. The status page described it as “degraded performance,” which is basically tech-speak for things aren’t running as smoothly as they should.
But the team moved quickly.
By around 10:47 a.m. ET, Anthropic reported that the issues across its services had been resolved. Just a couple of minutes later, the company confirmed that it had identified the root cause affecting Opus 4.6 and was already working on a fix.
Anthropic Responds to the Surge in Demand
In a statement shared shortly before 11 a.m. ET, Anthropic said Claude was back online across its platforms.
And honestly, the explanation was pretty straightforward: demand exploded.
“Claude is back up and running across claude.ai and our apps. We’re grateful to our users as the team works to match the incredible demand we’ve seen for Claude in recent days,” the company told CNBC.
So in a way, the glitches may have been a side effect of success. When millions of people suddenly start using something, systems sometimes struggle to keep up.
Pentagon Dispute Sparks Attention Around Claude
But here’s where the story gets a little more complicated.
Claude’s sudden surge in popularity didn’t happen in a vacuum. It came right after a very public disagreement between Anthropic and the U.S. Department of Defense.
Last July, Anthropic signed a $200 million contract with the Pentagon. Things seemed fine ,until the company pushed for restrictions on how its AI models could be used.
Anthropic wanted clear guarantees that its technology wouldn’t be used for fully autonomous weapons or mass domestic surveillance.
The Pentagon didn’t exactly love that idea.
Their stance was simple: if something is legal, the military should be allowed to use the platform for it.
U.S. Government Cuts Ties With Anthropic
The situation took a sharp turn on Friday.
President Donald Trump ordered all U.S. government agencies to immediately stop using Anthropic’s technology. Soon after, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth posted on X that the Pentagon would classify the company as a “supply-chain risk to national security.”
And the ripple effect was immediate.
Within hours of the government cutting ties with Anthropic, OpenAI stepped in and finalized a new deal with the Department of Defense.
A Strange Week for One of AI’s Hottest Apps
So here’s the weird part of the whole situation.
On one hand, Claude is suddenly one of the most downloaded apps on Apple’s App Store. People are clearly curious about it. Maybe even rooting for it.
On the other hand, the company just lost a major government partnership and found itself in the middle of a political and national security debate.
Success and controversy. Side by side.
Kind of like a see-saw.
And if the past year in AI has taught us anything, it’s this: things can change very quickly.
