Anthropic has recently named Irina Ghose, a former managing director at Microsoft India, to oversee its operations in India as the U.S.-based AI startup gears up to launch an office in Bengaluru. This move highlights the growing importance of India as a key battleground for AI companies seeking to expand into major growth markets beyond the U.S.
Ghose’s extensive experience in big-tech operations, accumulated over 24 years at Microsoft before her departure in December 2025, makes her a valuable addition to Anthropic. With her appointment, the company gains a seasoned executive with established relationships in the local enterprise and government sectors, essential as it establishes a physical presence in one of the world’s fastest-growing AI markets.
India has emerged as a crucial market for Anthropic, with the nation ranking as the second-largest user base for Claude, the company’s AI tool, with a strong focus on technical and work-related tasks such as software development. Competitor OpenAI is also intensifying its efforts in the Indian market, announcing plans to open an office in New Delhi, signaling India’s rapid transformation into a highly contested arena in the global race to commercialize generative AI.
Despite India’s vast scale, with over a billion internet subscribers and 700 million smartphone users, converting this reach into substantial revenue has posed challenges for AI companies. To overcome this hurdle, companies like OpenAI have experimented with aggressive pricing strategies and promotions. For instance, OpenAI introduced the ChatGPT Go plan priced under $5 to attract Indian users, later offering it for free for a year in the country.
Anthropic has witnessed significant engagement in India, with its Claude app experiencing a 48% increase in downloads from the previous year in September, totaling around 767,000 installations. Consumer spending also saw a remarkable surge of 572% to $195,000 for the month, although still modest compared to the U.S. market where spending reached $2.5 million in September.
The company’s CEO, Dario Amodei, made a visit to India in October, meeting with corporate executives and lawmakers, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, to discuss expansion plans and the growing adoption of Anthropic’s tools. Additionally, Anthropic explored a potential partnership with Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries to broaden access to Claude, but the deal did not materialize as Reliance opted to collaborate with Google instead. This highlights how telecom giants in India are pivotal distribution gatekeepers in the race to scale consumer AI services.
In a LinkedIn post announcing her new role, Ghose expressed her focus on collaborating with Indian enterprises, developers, and startups utilizing Claude for mission-critical applications. She highlighted the increasing demand for high-trust, enterprise-grade AI and emphasized the importance of AI tailored to local languages as a potential force multiplier across sectors like education and healthcare, indicating Anthropic’s intention to expand adoption beyond tech users to larger institutions and the public sector.
