Anthropic just made its India bet official. The AI startup has tapped Irina Ghose, a 24-year Microsoft veteran who most recently ran the company's India operations, to serve as managing director and lead its newly minted Bengaluru office. The move signals just how seriously Anthropic is taking India—where Claude has become the second-largest user base globally and downloads have surged 48% in just the past year.
Anthropic just made its India bet official. The AI startup has appointed Irina Ghose, a 24-year Microsoft veteran who led the company's India operations before stepping down in December, as its managing director to spearhead a Bengaluru office opening. It's a signal that the company isn't messing around—and a sign of where the real competition in AI is starting to heat up beyond the U.S.
Ghose brings serious credentials to the role. Her quarter-century at Microsoft gave her exactly what Anthropic needs right now: deep relationships with Indian enterprises, government connections, and the operating chops to scale a business in a market that's notoriously tricky to crack. CEO Dario Amodei clearly agrees. He was in India back in October, meeting with corporate execs and government officials, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, to lay the groundwork for this very expansion.
India isn't just another market for Anthropic—it's already become critical. The country is the second-largest user base for Claude globally, with usage patterns heavily skewed toward technical and developer work. The numbers tell the story: Claude's downloads grew 48% year-over-year in India in September, hitting roughly 767,000 installs, while consumer spending exploded 572% to $195,000 for the month, according to Appfigures data. That's modest compared to the U.S., where September spending hit $2.5 million, but the trajectory is unmistakable.
The problem is converting that user growth into durable revenue in a market with a billion-plus internet users and 700 million smartphone users but razor-thin margins. OpenAI tried aggressive pricing, launching ChatGPT Go at under $5 and then making it free for a year in India. Perplexity bundled its premium subscription with Bharti Airtel, one of India's major telecom providers. The telecom giants—Reliance, Airtel—have become the real distribution gatekeepers in the race to scale consumer AI, which is why Anthropic had reportedly explored a partnership with billionaire Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries. Google ultimately grabbed that deal, bundling its .
