OpenAI, Google and Perplexity are escalating competition for artificial intelligence users in India, rolling out free premium plans in a push that analysts say could also help them capture multilingual training data from the world’s most populous country.
India is the second-largest smartphone market, with roughly 730 million devices. Low mobile data costs and heavy usage make it an attractive testing ground for AI services.
Google began offering its Gemini AI Pro subscription—typically priced at $400—for free for 18 months to as many as 500 million Reliance Jio customers in November, and has since expanded discounted options through its “AI Plus” package. OpenAI has made its ChatGPT Go plan free for a year in India, after previously charging for it locally. Perplexity has also offered its Pro tier—priced at $200 annually elsewhere—free for a year to users of telecom operator Airtel.
Early indicators suggest the strategy is driving adoption. Sensor Tower data compiled for Reuters shows daily active users of ChatGPT in India rising 607% year-on-year to 73 million as of last week, while Gemini’s daily users reached 17 million after the Jio offer began. Perplexity’s India share of global daily active users has climbed to more than a third, up from 7% last year, according to the same dataset. OpenAI, Google and Perplexity did not respond to Reuters requests for comment.
Analysts say the surge in engagement could also generate valuable inputs for AI training, especially given India’s mix of languages and dialects. Such data can help models handle code-switching and region-specific usage patterns that are underrepresented in many existing datasets.
Aggressive pricing is a proven playbook in India. Reliance has previously used free and low-cost offerings to build scale, and major media groups have used free sports streaming as a growth lever.
For users, the offers can be immediately practical. Anees Hassan, a PhD student in Hyderabad, said he uses the free ChatGPT and Gemini plans for hours a day to find citations, polish writing and generate presentation images—while also noting concerns about data harvesting and using opt-out features to limit AI training on his activity.
