Anthropic expands in Europe with new roles and EMEA chief

Anthropic plans to add more than 100 roles across Europe, indicating a broader push to expand its global footprint amid rising demand for enterprise-ready AI tools.

The new roles will cover sales, engineering, research and business operations, with most hiring focused in Dublin and London, according to a Reuters report.

The company has also named former Stripe executive Guillaume Princen as its head of Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.

Last month, Anthropic raised $3.5 billion in funding. In February, it launched Claude 3.7 Sonnet, its most advanced model to date and the first to feature hybrid reasoning capabilities.

Targeting expansion and localization

Anthropic’s European hiring spree reflects its broader ambitions for global expansion – a move that mirrors a wider industry trend among well-funded AI firms, according to analysts.

“Every AI startup that has raised $1 billion is competing for global domination,” said Hyoun Park, CEO and chief analyst at Amalgam Insights. “Anthropic’s recent $3.5 billion round is no exception, as it seeks to be the leading model company for the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Africa. And to enable this growth, it makes sense that these European hires mainly focus on sales, marketing, and engineering.”

The company’s regional push also signals the growing importance of localization in AI development – especially as regional regulations and incentives shape how technology is built and deployed.

“Hiring locally in Europe could be to ensure that its offerings down the line are tuned to European requirements that may not fully align with that of the US – particularly related to AI governance,” said Abhishek Sengupta, practice director at Everest Group. “There could also be potential business incentives aligned to local operations as more and more countries announce funds for developing a local AI ecosystem.”

Implications on EU AI adoption

Beyond expansion, Anthropic’s growing presence in Europe may signal the start of direct competition with firms positioning themselves as regionally compliant AI providers.

Anthropic is “confronting” Cohere head-on, Park said, pointing out that the Canadian startup has been actively marketing itself as a European-based, EU-compliant alternative.

“But this market competition may be a gift in disguise, as the EU has been famously aggressive in attacking monopoly,” Park said. “Having anthropic more deeply focused on the EU may give more freedom for Cohere, OpenAI, Microsoft, Google, and other AI firms to be able to build business in what is perceived as a competitive market.”

For AI companies with global ambitions, building a meaningful presence in the EU is no longer optional. Park noted that Anthropic’s more deliberate and safety-focused approach may align better with the demands of highly regulated markets.

“It seems that in the immediate future, the US will be a country of less AI regulation where solutions such as Meta, OpenAI, and xAI may have an advantage,” Park added. “It also seems likely that the EU will be driving a lot of global first world AI policy in the near future, almost by default as other first world global centers are reluctant to define AI standards and governance.”