# AI Ethics Drive Consumer Shifts in Tech Market

**Podcast:** TechCrunch Daily Crunch
**Published:** 2026-03-04

## Transcript

This is TechCrunch.
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Yeah, this Saturday, February 28th, ChatGPT's mobile app jumped 295% in uninstalls day over day, as consumers responded to the news of OpenAI's deal with the Department of Defense, which has gotten a snazzy little rebrand under the Trump administration as the Department of War.
This data, which comes from market intelligence provider Censor Tower, thanks friends over there at Censor Tower, represents a sizable increase compared with ChatGPT's typically day-over-day uninstall rate of just a measly 9%.
Not even double digits, as measured over the past 30 days.
Meanwhile, U.S.
downloads for OpenAI competitor Anthropic's Claude jumped up by 37% day over day on Friday, February 27th, and 51% as of Saturday, February 28th, after the company announced that it ain't gonna partner with the U.S.
Defense Department.
Anthropic said it was not able to agree on the deal terms over concerns that AI would be used to surveil Americans and be used in fully autonomous weaponry, you know, Skynet type of stuff, which AI is not yet ready to do safely, according to Anthropic.
A set of consumers seemingly favored Anthropic's position on the matter, the data suggests.
In addition, ChatGPT's download growth was impacted by the news of the Department of War partnership, with its U.S.
downloads dropping by 13% day over day on Saturday, shortly after the news of its deal went public.
Now those downloads continue to fall on Sunday when they were down by 5% day over day.
And of course, I'm sure you're wondering, before the partnership was announced, the app's downloads had grown 14% day over day on Friday.
Now, these rapid changes were also reflected in Claude's App Store ranking, as the app hit number one on the U.S.
App Store on Saturday, where it continues to sit as of Monday, March 2nd.
That's quite a jump of over 20 ranks compared with roughly a week before.
Good old social network X is bringing its private messaging service, dubbed XChat, to a standalone app.
On Monday, the company said the initial beta of the XChat app was being made available to some lucky 1,000 users through Apple's test flight testing platform.
Now, the beta program had reached full capacity two hours after the announcement.
According to an X-post by XAI product designer Michael Boswell, the company will expand the beta beyond the initial 1,000 users soon, though he didn't offer any TA.
XChat is X's upgraded version of X's existing DM or direct messages feature, which the company claims is end-to-end encrypted.
Security experts, however, have warned potential users that the XCA service is, well, less secure than other encrypted messaging apps like Signal and should not be trusted.
It's not clear whether the company has addressed the security community's concerns in the standalone app.
The introduction of the app represents a decided shift away from X-owner Elon Musk's earlier plan to make X an everything app that would provide access to messaging, payments, creator content, and more, centralizing all aspects of the service.
A handful of early testers have begun sharing screenshots of the app's interface.
One user said the beta version of the app had stylized the name as XChat, lowercase X NoSpace, Capital C H A T, instead of Capital X space, capital C H A T, which could suggest a potential rebranding.
Others began sharing screenshots from the app, like the login screen, which has a starry background.
Ooh.
Early users describe the app as a simple, smoother interface for using XChat compared with the X app.
You see, the current version of the app doesn't include message requests, but Boswell says that's being rebuilt now.
An Android version of the XChat app is expected very soon.
Apple announced its new slate of laptops on Tuesday morning, including new MacBook Air and MacBook Pro models that use Apple's M5 chips.
The Pro models were unveiled alongside the brand new M5 Pro and M5 Max chips, which Apple describes as its most advanced CPU cores yet.
The company said these updated M5 chips were specifically designed to make the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro laptops better at handling intensive AI tasks, which are becoming more of a focal point for new Apple hardware.
Both the new Air and Pro laptops can handle AI tasks up to 4X faster than their respective M4 predecessors, according to Apple.
These AI-centric upgrades may not be immediately noticeable for more casual users who aren't trying to run a computationally intensive network of AI agents or generate fast 3D renderings, but these advancements permeate other aspects of the laptops as well.
MacBook Air users get perks like 18 hours of battery life, a six-hour improvement compared with the last Intel-based Apple laptops from 2020, as well as a 12-megapixel center stage camera for video calls, a three-mic array, and a sound system that supports spatial audio and Dolby Atmos.
Whew, that's a lot of upgrades.
The MacBook Air has two Thunderbolt 4 ports, a Mac Save charging port, and a classic 3.5mm headphone jack.
Whew.
The new MacBook Air lineup comprises a 13-inch, starting at 1,099, and 15-inch model, starting at 1,299, with color options in sky blue, midnight, starlight, and silver.
The Air also now comes with starting storage of 512 gigabytes, doubling the previous model's base storage capacity.
Now, as usual, the MacBook Pro is geared toward more technical users, especially developers working with AI.
The 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models with the M5 Pro Chips start at $2,199 and $2,699, respectively, whereas the models with the M5 Max chips start at $3,599 and $3,899, available in either black or silver.