Startup Perplexity AI has partnered with Bharti Airtel to offer its premium AI answer engine free to millions of Indians. On July 17, Airtel announced it will provide a 12-month Perplexity Pro subscription at no cost to all of its 360 million customers. The Pro plan, normally priced around ₹17,000 per year (≈$200), unlocks advanced AI search and productivity features.
In effect, any Airtel mobile, broadband or DTH user can get a powerful AI assistant for one year without paying a rupee.
India: The New AI Battleground
This move marks Perplexity’s bold bid to win over India’s online market, where it competes with OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Thanks to the Airtel freebie, Perplexity’s app instantly rocketed to No. 1 on the iOS App Store in India, overtaking ChatGPT in the free charts. By teaming up with Airtel, which reaches both big cities and small towns, Perplexity stands to greatly expand its user base overnight. Millions of Indians who have never tried an AI search engine before may now do so, given the zero-cost entry.
High Hopes, High Costs
Behind the fanfare, industry observers note the free-for-all strategy is an expensive gamble for Perplexity. Not everyone eligible will bother to redeem the offer, some analysts suspect under 10% of Airtel customers will claim it. But even if, say, 50 million users sign up, serving all their AI queries could cost a fortune. One commentator estimated that at just one query per day per user, those 50 million new users might rack up $100-$500 million in cloud costs over a year. Perplexity is banking that enough of these users will find value and eventually subscribe, but that outcome is far from certain.
The Conversion Challenge in India
Turning free users into paying customers is notoriously hard in India’s price-sensitive market. Perplexity’s own estimates suggest the realistic pool of likely paying users via Airtel is much smaller than 360 million, perhaps around 24 million urban professionals who might truly need an AI research tool. For meaningful revenue, Perplexity would need roughly 2.4 million of those users to eventually pay, a goal observers call “impossibly high” given many Indians’ reluctance to pay for online services. Indeed, consumers in India often treat search engines or chatbots as free utilities. As one commenter wryly noted, “Indians love free trials almost as much as they hate paying for subscription”. All this casts doubt on whether a significant number of users will ever pay up after the free period.
Strategy or Misstep?
What’s the endgame for such a generous deal if immediate payback is uncertain? One theory is that Perplexity is playing a long game to break users’ Google habit and gain market share now, even if monetization comes later. “This is mostly a Google habit-breaking promo… Now, with free Pro access, they’ll probably use it and it feels premium,” observed one commenter, suggesting Perplexity hopes users will stick around and eventually tolerate ads. In other words, building a large user base now could yield advertising or other revenue later. There’s also speculation that the campaign could boost Perplexity’s valuation, amid talk of potential big-tech suitors.
For Airtel, the exclusive tie-up helps set it apart from rival Reliance Jio. The carrier has struggled to match Jio’s rapid growth, and offering a ₹17,000 digital service free is a bid to attract or retain high-end customers.
While the deal may earn Airtel goodwill and a tech-savvy niche of subscribers, it’s unclear if it will make a big difference in a market where pricing drives decisions. Ultimately, the question is whether Perplexity can turn this tidal wave of free trials into a sustainable paid user base or if millions of Indians will simply enjoy the free ride and fade away when asked to pay.
Also Read: Why Apple is Eyeing Perplexity AI?
