Airtel Offers a One-Year Perplexity AI Pro Subscription for Free to Its Customers
Bharti Airtel has partnered with AI-powered answer engine Perplexity to offer a free one-year subscription to its premium service, Perplexity Pro, to all Airtel customers. This includes over 360 million prepaid, postpaid mobile, and broadband users across the country.
First-of-its-Kind AI Partnership in India
This marks Perplexity's first collaboration with a telecom operator in India, and is part of its global strategy to expand into key internet markets. Similar partnerships have been struck previously with SoftBank in Japan and T-Mobile in the US.
The Perplexity Pro subscription, usually priced at $20 per month (approximately ₹1,731), gives users access to advanced features such as Pro Search, Deep Research, and faster response speeds. Airtel customers can claim the offer via the ‘Rewards’ section in the Airtel Thanks app, valid until January 17, 2026.
Importantly, the subscription will not auto-renew. After 12 months, users will be downgraded to the free tier unless they manually subscribe. The offer is valid only for active Airtel users throughout the year.
Leadership Speak: Empowering Millions with Gen-AI
Gopal Vittal, Vice Chairman and Managing Director of Bharti Airtel, said:
“This collaboration will bring the powerful and real-time knowledge tool to millions of users at their fingertips, at no extra cost. This first-of-its-kind Gen-AI partnership in India is focused on helping our customers navigate the emerging digital landscape with confidence and ease.”
Perplexity’s Co-founder and CEO, Aravind Srinivas, added:
“This partnership is an exciting way to make accurate, trustworthy, and professional-grade AI accessible to more people in India—whether a student, working professional, or managing a household. With Perplexity Pro, users get a smarter, easier way to find information, learn, and get more done.”
Competing with Google in India’s AI Race
This move comes shortly after Google rolled out a free one-year AI subscription for Indian college students, offering access to Gemini 2.5 Pro, NotebookLM, and other premium tools like Veo 3 for video generation.
India has emerged as a key market for Perplexity. In April, Srinivas told Moneycontrol that India ranks among the top 10 revenue-generating countries and top four in daily traffic for the startup.
“A lot of people are using our deep research agent and Pro Search features. India is a very important market for us,” Srinivas said, hinting at plans to introduce India-specific pricing to attract more paid users.
Local Content Push: Cricket, Entertainment & More
To deepen its footprint in India, Perplexity has been focusing on localized content. Earlier this year, it launched a dedicated IPL page for cricket fans, and is actively working to enhance support for entertainment, local languages, and regional content.
In February, the company also partnered with Paytm, integrating its AI engine into the fintech app to offer instant AI-powered answers.
A Growing AI Giant
Founded in 2022 by Aravind Srinivas, Denis Yarats, Johnny Ho, and Andy Konwinski, Perplexity was recently valued at $9 billion after a $500 million funding round led by Institutional Venture Partners. It is now reportedly in talks to raise fresh funds at a staggering $14 billion valuation.
Backed by tech giants including Nvidia and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Perplexity is positioning itself as a strong challenger to traditional search engines like Google, with India playing a central role in its global growth strategy.
