Anthropic has appointed former Microsoft India managing director Irina Ghose to lead its India business as the US AI startup prepares to open an office in Bengaluru. The move underscores how India has become a major battleground for AI companies looking to expand beyond the US to reach key growth markets.
Goss brings deep operational experience in big technology to this role. She spent 24 years at Microsoft before stepping down in December 2025. Her appointment gives Anthropic an experienced executive with local enterprise and government relations, as it prepares 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 Cloud, and usage shifting heavily towards technical and business-related tasks, including software development. Archrival OpenAI is increasing 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 generative AI.
While India offers enormous scale – with over a billion internet subscribers and over 700 million smartphone users – converting 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 then made it available for free for a year in the country.
There are similar dynamics for Anthropic: Its Claude app posted 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, according to AppFigures — still modest compared to the US, where September spending was $2.5 million.
Anthropic is intensifying its engagement in India at the highest levels. CEO Dario Amodei visited the company in October and met with corporate executives and lawmakers, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, to discuss the company’s expansion plans and the growing adoption of its tools. Anthropic has also explored a potential partnership with billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries to expand access to Claude, as TechCrunch previously reported. However, Reliance eventually struck a deal with Google to offer its Gemini AI Pro plan for free to Jio subscribers. The move came as rival Bharti Airtel partnered with Perplexity to bundle access to its premium subscription, underscoring how India’s telecom giants have become important distribution gatekeepers in the race to scale AI services to consumers.
In a LinkedIn post announcing the move, Goss said He said It will focus on working with Indian companies, developers and startups adopting Cloud for “mission-critical” use cases, citing the growing demand for what it describes as “high-trust, enterprise-level 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 adopters of the technology in larger organizations and the public sector.
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The push from Anthropic, OpenAI and Perplexity comes at a time when India’s homegrown GenAI ecosystem is still at a relatively early stage. While the country has a large pool of programming talent and a rapidly growing base of AI users, it has produced few startups that build massive, basic models, with investors instead largely backing application-layer companies rather than committing the amount of capital typically required to train frontier systems.
The appointment also comes ahead of the India AI Impact Summit 2026 in February, where the Indian government is convening… is expected to bring Bringing together AI startups, global executives 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 indigenous AI development and position India as a serious player in the global AI landscape, as competition intensifies across key markets.
Anthropic is also building its Indian team Job listings For roles including startup and enterprise account executives as well as partner sales manager, signaling a push to deepen its go-to-market efforts and tap Indian corporates and startups as clients while expanding its presence in the country.
For Anthropic, the hire adds senior local leadership as it looks to turn growing usage in India into a permanent business, navigating a market where distribution partnerships, pricing pressure and enterprise adoption will shape the AI players that emerge as long-term winners.
