Perplexity’s free AI offer left it with millions more users in India
Perplexity AI saw a massive surge in users in India after partnering with telecom provider Airtel to offer free premium subscriptions. While the giveaway drove millions of downloads and active users, the company now faces the challenge of converting these users into paid subscribers as the free trials expire.
Why it matters
This experiment provides a case study on the effectiveness of bundling AI services with telecommunications to capture market share in emerging economies.
Perplexity spent the past year running one of the biggest AI growth experiments, giving its premium service away to customers of Indian telecom giant Airtel . Now, as the earliest of those free subscriptions expire, the results are starting to emerge, offering an early test of whether bundling paid AI services can create lasting users and revenue after the giveaway ends.
In July 2025, Perplexity partnered with Airtel, India’s second biggest telecom operator, to offer a free 12-month Perplexity Pro subscription, normally worth about $200, to the Indian carrier’s 360 million customers. New redemptions ended on January 16 . However, because subscribers retained Pro for a year from activation, the earliest users began reaching the end of their free access last month and had to opt out of auto-renewal if they did not want to be charged.
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