Anthropic, one of the world’s leading artificial intelligence startups, has announced its first senior leadership appointment in India, naming former Microsoft India managing director Irina Ghose to head its local operations.
Ghose takes on the role of Managing Director for Anthropic India, bringing to a close her 24-year stint at Microsoft India. During her tenure, she held several leadership positions, including chief operating officer, before being elevated to managing director in June 2023. She also previously led Microsoft’s education and cloud sales businesses in the country. Her move comes at a time when global AI companies are racing to establish an early and meaningful presence in the Indian market.
In a statement, Anthropic said India is now its second-largest market, a view also shared by rival OpenAI. Anthropic is backed by major global investors including Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Nvidia, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs and the Qatar Investment Authority. While the company has not released official usage data for its Claude models, third-party estimates suggest about 30 million monthly active users globally as of end-December 2025, behind OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, who is expected to speak at the AI Impact Summit in New Delhi on February 18–19, has previously highlighted India’s vast technical talent pool and its importance in shaping responsible and inclusive global AI development.
