Anthropic taps former Microsoft India MD to lead Bengaluru expansion | TechCrunch

Anthropic has appointed Irina Ghose, a former Microsoft India managing director, to lead its India business as the U.S. AI startup prepares to open an office in Bengaluru. The move underscores how India is becoming a key battleground for AI companies looking to expand beyond the U.S. for major growth markets.

Ghose brings deep big-tech operating experience to the role. She spent 24 years at Microsoft before stepping down in December 2025. Her appointment gives Anthropic a seasoned executive with local enterprise and government relationships as it gears up to establish an on-the-ground 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 skewing toward 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 India is fast becoming one of the most contested arenas in the global race to commercialize generative AI.

While India offers enormous scale — with more than a billion internet subscribers and over 700 million smartphone users — converting that reach into meaningful revenue has proven difficult, pushing AI companies to experiment with aggressive pricing and promotions. OpenAI last year introduced ChatGPT Go, its under-$5 plan aimed at attracting Indian users, and later made it available free for a year in the country.

Similar dynamics are playing out for Anthropic: its Claude app recorded a 48% increase from the previous year in downloads in India in September, reaching about 767,000 installs, while consumer spending surged 572% to $195,000 for the month, per Appfigures — still modest compared with the U.S., where September spending hit $2.5 million.

Anthropic has been stepping up its engagement in India at the highest levels. Chief executive Dario Amodei visited in October and met 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 broaden access to Claude, as TechCrunch reported previously. Reliance, however, ultimately struck a deal with Google to offer its Gemini AI Pro plan free to Jio subscribers. That move came as rival Bharti Airtel partnered with Perplexity to bundle access to its premium subscription, underscoring how India’s telecom giants have become critical distribution gatekeepers in the race to scale consumer AI services.

In a LinkedIn post announcing the move, Ghose said she would focus on working with Indian enterprises, developers and startups adopting Claude for “mission-critical” use cases, pointing to growing demand for what she described as “high-trust, enterprise-grade AI.” She added that AI tailored to local languages could be a “force multiplier” across sectors including education and healthcare — signaling Anthropic’s intent to deepen adoption beyond early tech users into larger institutions and the public sector.

The push by Anthropic, OpenAI, and Perplexity comes as India’s homegrown GenAI ecosystem remains relatively early-stage. While the country has a deep pool of software talent and a fast-growing base of AI users, it has produced few startups building large foundation models, with investors instead largely backing application-layer 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 deployment 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 across major markets.

Anthropic is also building out its India team, with job listings for roles including startup and enterprise account executives as well as a partner sales manager, 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 surging usage into a durable business, navigating a market where distribution partnerships, pricing pressure, and enterprise adoption will shape which AI players emerge as long-term winners.