A growing wave of Indian and Indian-origin executives moving into influential positions at major AI and technology companies, including OpenAI, Anthropic and Meta. The latest high-profile move is Sandhya Devanathan, Meta's former vice president and head of India and Southeast Asia, who is leaving after more than a decade to join OpenAI.
These moves are significant because India is becoming strategically important to the global AI industry. OpenAI and Anthropic are expanding their presence in India, while Indian executives are increasingly being placed in roles spanning business development, enterprise adoption, product, marketing and regional strategy. Anthropic has also been strengthening its Indian leadership team as it expands among developers, startups and enterprises.
The talent movement also reflects the increasingly competitive nature of the global AI talent war. Frontier AI companies are competing not only for researchers and engineers, but also for executives who understand large markets, enterprise customers and international expansion. Meta, for example, has recently recruited OpenAI veteran Luke Metz into its Superintelligence Labs, demonstrating that senior talent is moving in both directions across the industry's leading companies.
The broader takeaway is that India's influence on AI is extending beyond its traditional IT-services role. Indian-origin leaders are increasingly helping shape the commercial, technical and strategic decisions of the world's most important AI companies. As OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta and others compete for global customers and talent, India's large technology workforce and growing AI market could make Indian leadership increasingly important to the industry's next phase.
