Anthropic and OpenAI both raced to release their most advanced AI models around the same time. Anthropic unveiled Fable 5 on June 9, while OpenAI’s GPT-5.6 only became widely available in early July after an earlier delay for security concerns.
Both companies had to respond to tightening U.S. national-security oversight. Three days after the Fable 5 debut the U.S. Department of Commerce opened an export-control process concerning the model. The action cited security weaknesses and an alleged China-linked knowledge-distillation campaign, and Anthropic temporarily suspended user access to the model — blocking access to Fable and Mythost. The restriction was lifted on July 1 after Anthropic implemented additional protective measures.
OpenAI faced comparable hurdles: at the government’s request the public rollout of GPT-5.6 was postponed, but after further testing the Department of Commerce approved broader deployment. OpenAI released GPT-5.6 in three tiers: the high-end Sol, a mid-tier Terra and the cost-efficient Luna.
Part of the stricter oversight stems from an executive order by President Donald Trump that limits developers to providing their most advanced models to the U.S. government for testing for no more than 30 days before making them available to trusted partners.
Search interest: which model drew more attention?
Google Trends data show different temporal patterns of public interest around the two models. Searches for Fable 5 surged sharply in June around the launch and the subsequent restriction; this spike substantially outpaced search interest in GPT-5.6 during the same period.
GPT-5.6 only began to register significant search increases around its public release in early July. At that point, as interest in Fable 5 had subsided, search volume for the OpenAI model briefly exceeded that for Anthropic’s model.
Geographic patterns and brand-level differences
Regionally, Fable 5 searches were strongest in China and Singapore (both reached near-maximum scores), followed by the Netherlands, South Korea and Taiwan. For GPT-5.6, Singapore led, followed by South Korea and the Netherlands. In sum, the same five markets — China, Singapore, the Netherlands, South Korea and Taiwan — top the lists for both models, but in different orders.
At the brand level, global interest in ChatGPT over the past 30 days remained consistently higher than searches for the Claude language model. That suggests the new model announcements produced short-term spikes for both firms, while OpenAI’s brand retained a leading position within the broader chatbot category.
Why this matters
The near-simultaneous product launches and ensuing government actions illustrate how deployment of advanced language models quickly becomes a matter of national-security policy. Google Trends provides a visible measure of how public and specialist attention responds to launches and restrictions — showing both short-term surges and the enduring significance of brand leadership in AI chatbots.
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(Content based on Google Trends data and the article source.)
