The global artificial intelligence landscape took a decisive turn toward India this week after Anthropic announced the opening of its new office in Bengaluru. The expansion marks the company’s second presence in Asia following Tokyo and signals a clear strategic shift — India is no longer just a fast-growing user base for AI tools, but a central hub where future AI systems will be built, tested and integrated into society at scale. The company confirmed it will hire locally across research, engineering, partnerships and policy roles, highlighting its intention to embed itself deeply into the country’s technology ecosystem rather than operate remotely. Unlike earlier waves of global tech expansion, this move is not merely about outsourcing talent or sales expansion. The company revealed that India is already the second-largest market for its AI assistant Claude, with nearly half of its usage focused on programming and mathematics tasks such as debugging, deployment automation and software development. This usage pattern differs sharply from Western markets where generative writing dominates, showing that Indian users treat AI less like a novelty content generator and more like a daily productivity collaborator. The Bengaluru office therefore becomes a product-development center shaped by real-world usage patterns rather than a symbolic regional headquarters. According to managing director Irina Ghose, India offers a unique combination of large-scale digital infrastructure, a deep technical talent pool and a proven history of applying technology to social challenges. The company believes this environment makes the country ideal for building what it calls responsible AI — systems designed not only to perform tasks efficiently but to operate reliably in complex real-world environments involving multiple languages, education levels and connectivity conditions. The office launch coincides with the company reporting that its India run-rate revenue has doubled since October 2025, indicating strong enterprise adoption beyond experimental usage.
AI in Classrooms: Testing, Learning and Access to Education
One of the most significant aspects of the announcement is the company’s collaboration with Pratham, a nonprofit focused on improving learning outcomes for underserved children. The partnership introduces an AI-powered tool called the Anytime Testing Machine, currently piloted across 1,500 students in 20 schools and expected to expand to 100 schools by the end of 2026. The system enables flexible exam preparation by generating adaptive questions, evaluating responses and guiding students toward mastery instead of memorization, addressing a longstanding challenge in India’s education system where assessments are often infrequent and feedback delayed. Co-founder Madhav Chavan explained that AI could bridge the resource gap for students who lack access to private tutoring or advanced teaching infrastructure. Instead of relying solely on textbooks or periodic classroom tests, learners can repeatedly practice concepts in a conversational environment that adjusts difficulty based on performance. The goal is not to replace teachers but to extend their reach, allowing them to focus on conceptual understanding while the AI handles continuous assessment and practice. The company is also collaborating with Central Square Foundation to measure how artificial intelligence and education technology can improve measurable learning outcomes. The focus here is data-driven impact rather than engagement metrics, meaning the success of the initiative will depend on whether students actually understand subjects better rather than simply spending more time interacting with digital tools. If effective, the approach could influence public education strategies and shift ed-tech from content consumption toward personalized mastery.
Beyond classrooms, the company announced support for Adalat AI, a legal assistance platform launching a nationwide helpline via WhatsApp. The service allows citizens to check court case status, translate legal documents, summarize filings and ask questions in Indian languages. In a country where legal processes are often difficult to understand and language barriers discourage participation, a conversational interface could significantly improve access to justice and reduce dependency on intermediaries. The potential implications are considerable because millions of litigants struggle simply to interpret official notices or track hearing dates. By turning legal documents into understandable language, AI could lower the entry barrier to the judicial system and reduce procedural confusion. Even incremental improvements in comprehension could translate into fewer missed hearings and faster resolution of cases, illustrating how artificial intelligence is increasingly being applied to civic infrastructure rather than only commercial applications.
Enterprise Growth, Open Standards and Talent Expansion
The expansion also reflects accelerating adoption across Indian businesses. Companies in software development, financial services and IT outsourcing are integrating AI assistants into workflows for documentation, knowledge search and coding support. The company’s revenue growth in the country indicates that organizations are moving from pilot experiments to operational integration, using AI as a productivity multiplier rather than a trial technology. To support broader ecosystem adoption, the company recently donated its Model Context Protocol — an open standard connecting AI systems to external tools — to the Linux Foundation. The move aims to create interoperability between AI applications and enterprise systems, reducing vendor lock-in while encouraging innovation. Open governance also helps address trust concerns, particularly in markets where transparency is essential for adoption in regulated sectors such as finance, healthcare and government services. The Bengaluru office will play a central role in this expansion by hiring local engineers and researchers capable of addressing multilingual usage patterns and region-specific requirements. Indian users frequently combine languages and use informal phrasing when interacting with digital systems, making localized training essential for reliability. By building systems locally, the company hopes to refine models in real-world contexts rather than simulated environments.
Industry analysts see the expansion as part of a broader shift: artificial intelligence companies now consider India a primary innovation environment rather than a secondary market. The country’s massive population, diverse linguistic landscape and expanding digital governance systems create conditions where AI must perform accurately under real-world complexity. Success in such an environment often predicts global scalability because systems capable of operating reliably in India can generally function anywhere. Educational and legal deployments also help familiarize citizens with AI in practical contexts rather than abstract ones. A student practicing mathematics through an adaptive interface or a litigant checking case status via messaging experiences technology as a utility rather than a novelty. This everyday exposure can accelerate adoption across society, making the country both a market and a design influence for future AI products.
The opening of Anthropic’s Bengaluru office represents more than geographic expansion; it marks a shift in how artificial intelligence companies approach global deployment. By combining local hiring with partnerships in education, public services and enterprise integration, the company is positioning India as a core environment for building and refining responsible AI. If these initiatives succeed, they could demonstrate how advanced technology can move beyond productivity tools into meaningful societal infrastructure, shaping not only the company’s future but also the global direction of artificial intelligence adoption.
