Anthropic has appointed Irina Ghose, former managing director of Microsoft India, to lead its India business as the US AI startup prepares to open an office in Bangalore. The move highlights how India is becoming a key battleground for AI companies looking to expand beyond the US for large growth markets.
Ghose brings deep experience operating big tech to the role. She spent 24 years at Microsoft before stepping down in December 2025. Her appointment gives Anthropic an experienced executive with local business and government relationships as it prepares to establish a local presence in one of the world’s fastest-growing AI markets.
India has become one of Anthropic’s most strategically important markets, with the country already ranking as the second largest user base for Claude and usage heavily skewed towards technical and work-related tasks, including software development. Arch-rival OpenAI is also sharpening its focus on the market with plans to open an office in New Delhi — a sign that India is fast becoming one of the most contested arenas in the global race to commercialize genetic artificial intelligence.
While India offers massive scale—with more than a billion Internet subscribers and over 700 million smartphone users—translating that reach into meaningful revenue has proven difficult, prompting AI companies to experiment with aggressive pricing and promotions. OpenAI last year introduced ChatGPT Go, its sub-$5 plan aimed at attracting Indian users, and later made it available for free for a year in the country.
Similar momentum is happening for Anthropic: the Claude app saw a 48% year-over-year increase in downloads in India in September, reaching about 767,000 installs, while consumer spending rose 572% to $195,000 for the month, per Appfigures — still modest compared to September’s $2 million.
Anthropic has stepped up its commitment in India to the highest levels. CEO Dario Amodei visited in October and met with corporate executives and lawmakers, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, to discuss the company’s expansion plans and growing adoption of its tools. Anthropic had also explored a potential partnership with billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries to expand access to Claude, as TechCrunch previously reported. Reliance, however, eventually struck a deal with Google to offer its Gemini AI Pro program for free to Jio subscribers. The move came as rival Bharti Airtel partnered with Perplexity to freeze access to its premium subscription, underscoring how India’s telecom giants have become critical gatekeepers in the race to scale consumer AI services.
In a LinkedIn post announcing the move, Ghose he said would focus on working with Indian businesses, developers and startups adopting Claude for “mission-critical” use cases, pointing to growing demand for what it described as “high-trust, enterprise-grade AI.” He added that AI adapted to local languages could be a “force multiplier” in all sectors, including education and healthcare – signaling Anthropic’s intention to deepen adoption beyond early technology adopters into larger institutions and the public sector.
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The push by Anthropic, OpenAI and Perplexity comes as India’s domestic GenAI ecosystem remains relatively early. While the country has a deep pool of software talent and a fast-growing AI user base, it has produced few startups building large enterprise models, with investors largely backing application-level companies rather than committing the scale of capital typically required to train frontier systems.
The appointment also comes ahead of India’s AI Impact Summit 2026 in February, where the Indian government is expected to bring together AI startups, global CEOs and industry experts to discuss the next phase of AI development in the country. The summit is part of New Delhi’s broader effort to signal support for domestic AI development and position India as a serious player in the global AI landscape as competition intensifies in major markets.
Anthropic is also building its team in India, with job listings for roles including startup and enterprise account executives as well as director of partner sales, signaling a push to deepen its go-to-market efforts and tap Indian businesses and startups as customers as it expands its presence in the country.
For Anthropic, the hire adds senior local leadership as it looks to turn India’s growing usage into a resilient business, navigating a market where distribution partnerships, pricing pressure and enterprise adoption will shape which AI players emerge as long-term winners.
