BENGALURU, Jan 16 - Artificial intelligence startup Anthropic has appointed former Microsoft MSFT.O executive Irina Ghose as its managing director for India, the company said on Friday.

Ghose served as managing director for Microsoft's India business, a role she held for two years before leaving the company in December 2025, following a 24-year career at the U.S. tech major.

Anthropic, which is backed by Alphabet's Google GOOGL.O and Amazon AMZN.O, is set to open its first India office in Bengaluru in early 2026. The country is currently the second-largest market for the company's AI chatbot Claude, with usage primarily focused on technical applications such as programming.

India, home to more than a billion internet users, has become a hotly contested arena for global tech players as enterprise and consumer usage of AI ramps up in the country.

(Reporting by Abhirami G in Bengaluru; Editing by Harikrishnan Nair)

((abhirami.g@thomsonreuters.com))