ChatGPT Hits 1B Users as AI Backlash Grows

One billion monthly users in May . ChatGPT became the fastest app in history to hit the milestone, surpassing the previous record set by Google Maps , Sensor Tower reported. It took roughly three and a half years. Facebook needed four and a half. YouTube took six.

Yet despite mounting public backlash, global AI usage has surged to record highs . A Pew Research survey conducted in March 2026 found that half of US adults expressed more concern than excitement about AI's societal impact . An Economist/YouGov poll released this week showed over 70% of Americans think AI is advancing too quickly . The paradox is stark: people are using the thing more but trusting it less.

Can Rivals Close the Gap?

Sensor Tower figures cited by Reuters put the year-on-year user growth of Meta AI at 973% and Claude at 640% — a stark contrast to the 62% expansion recorded by ChatGPT over the same stretch . Claude's global monthly active app user count at 56 million , according to the data firm. That's a fraction of ChatGPT's scale, but the velocity tells a different story.

On Tuesday, Anthropic launched Claude Fable 5, the first publicly available version of its Mythos model. Anthropic says Fable 5 excels at software engineering, knowledge work, and vision, but it comes with hard safety limits . In high-risk areas like cybersecurity, biology, chemistry, and distillation, the model blocks responses and falls back to Claude Opus 4.8 . Anthropic said in May that its revenue run rate has ballooned to $47 billion, up from roughly $10 billion in annual revenue last year. It recently closed a funding round at a $965 billion valuation, topping its chief rival, OpenAI, which was valued at $852 billion in late March .

Europe is making its own play. Mistral AI CEO Arthur Mensch revealed for the first time that the French AI model builder is exploring designing its own chips , CNBC reported. The company is targeting 1 billion euros in revenue in 2026 . Mensch said that custom chips allow a company to "lower the cost of deploying tokens to meaningful extents" . In September 2025, Bloomberg announced that Mistral AI has secured a €2 billion investment valuing it at €12 billion ($14 billion) .

Meanwhile, Meta has pledged to invest at least $600 billion in U.S. data centers and AI infrastructure over the next several years, including a projected capital expenditure spend of $135 billion in 2026 . The deal with AMD: up to 6 gigawatts of custom AMD Instinct MI450 GPUs, a multi-year commitment worth an estimated $60 billion, and a warrant structure that hands Meta roughly 10% of AMD's equity if both sides deliver . A Citi analyst told MarketWatch that Wall Street is underestimating how much Meta will spend on AMD's AI chips.

Why Is Public Sentiment Souring?

The report cited data from Pew Research indicating that only 10% of Americans feel more excited than concerned about AI, compared to a majority of experts who expect positive outcomes across key sectors , according to Stanford's 2026 AI Index. Only 18% of young people ages 14 to 29 say they feel hopeful about AI, according to a recent Gallup survey .

At graduation ceremonies across the U.S., students have audibly expressed frustration with AI, citing fears over lost entry-level jobs and environmental costs , Reuters noted. A commencement address went viral this month after Florida real estate executive Gloria Caulfield said "artificial intelligence is the next Industrial Revolution," sparking a chorus of boos from the crowd , Axios reported.

A record number of data centers, which provide the compute AI companies use to answer user queries, were canceled in the first quarter of 2026 amid resistance from communities, per Heatmap Pro data. "Public pushback is emerging as a binding constraint, particularly around data center buildout," Morgan Stanley analysts wrote in a note about market risks .

Last week Anthropic issued a call to halt AI development worldwide, cautioning that advances left unchecked risk spiraling beyond human oversight . Anthropic warned that systems are advancing so rapidly that they may soon achieve recursive self-improvement (RSI), autonomously improving themselves without human intervention . Days later, it released Fable 5 to the public.

What Changed This Week

ChatGPT reached one billion monthly app users in May, according to Sensor Tower estimates . Both OpenAI and Anthropic are now moving toward public listings. OpenAI submitted a confidential S-1 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, valued at $852 billion, while Anthropic filed its own IPO prospectus a week earlier at a valuation of $965 billion . Anthropic overtook OpenAI in private valuation with a $965B Series H . The $3 trillion IPO supercycle is live.

What to Watch

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang returns to Paris next week to deliver the GTC Paris keynote at VivaTech 2026, running June 17 to 20 at Paris Expo Porte de Versailles . With Mensch speaking at VivaTech the same week, Paris becomes the one stage where Nvidia's largest European customer, investor relationship, and open-model ally converge . Negative AI sentiment could become a financial liability for AI labs if it continues to curb access to their most valuable resource: compute power . Watch whether the labs address trust gaps or simply outrun them.