Big Tech is offering free AI in India to win users, collect data, and dominate a fast-growing digital market. With a massive population, rising internet access, and developer talent, India is key to training models, locking ecosystems, and shaping future revenue through long-term adoption across multiple sectors nationwide rapidly.
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The Great AI Giveaway in India: Why These Companies Are So Focused on You
When you open ChatGPT or Gemini on your smartphone in India right now, you might be getting something incredibly valuable absolutely free. In the past few months, some of the world’s biggest technology companies have started offering their best AI tools at no cost in India. This is not an accident. It is part of a major competition happening right now to win over Indian users.
OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, started this trend in November 2025. The company announced it would give away its ChatGPT Go subscription, normally priced at 399 rupees per month, completely free for one full year to every new user who signs up. That is the same month Google jumped in with an even bigger offer. The search giant made a deal with Reliance Jio to give its Gemini AI Pro subscription, worth 35,100 rupees per year, free for 18 months to over 500 million Jio customers. Perplexity, another AI company, did not want to be left behind. It partnered with Airtel to give its Pro tool free for a year to 360 million Airtel subscribers.
This is happening because India is extremely important to these companies. Here is why.
Why India Matters So Much: Three Big Reasons
First, India has more smartphone users than almost any country in the world. There are about 730 million smartphones in India right now. This is the second-largest smartphone market globally. Most of these smartphones are affordable devices, which means more people can use AI tools. When you have that many potential users, every company wants to be part of it.
Second, India offers the cheapest mobile data in the entire world. Indians pay only 9.2 cents per gigabyte of data. Compare this to the United States, where people pay around 12 dollars per gigabyte. This huge difference matters because it means Indians consume a lot of data without spending much money. In fact, Indians use an average of 21 gigabytes of data every month. This cheap data means people can use AI apps constantly without worrying about expensive bills. For companies, it means users can try free AI services without any barriers.
Third, India has speakers of 22 official languages plus hundreds of dialects. This is something very special. When an AI company offers a service in India, it gets data from millions of people using AI in Hindi, Tamil, Bengali, Telugu, Marathi, and many other languages. This multilingual data is gold for technology companies. It helps them improve their AI tools so they work better across different languages worldwide. OpenAI, Google, and Perplexity all need this kind of diverse language data to make their AI smarter.
What Each Company Is Offering and Why It Matters
ChatGPT Go by OpenAI gives you access to GPT-5, which is OpenAI’s latest and most powerful AI model. You can create advanced images, upload large files for analysis, and have conversations that remember your preferences. Normally, you would pay 399 rupees every month. Now it is free for one year. This is huge for students who need help with homework, professionals doing research, and creators making content.
Gemini AI Pro by Google includes Gemini 2.5 Pro, 2 terabytes of cloud storage, and advanced research tools called Deep Research. For students, it has been free for a year. For Jio users on unlimited 5G plans aged 18 to 25, it is free for 18 months. The plan costs 1,950 rupees per month normally. Google integrated Gemini into Gmail, Docs, and other tools you probably already use.
Perplexity Pro is especially strong for research and finding information. It offers unlimited searches, document uploads for analysis, and access to multiple AI models, including GPT-4 and Claude. Airtel customers get this for free for one year, and it normally costs 17,000 rupees annually.
What This Competition Means for Regular Indians
The numbers show how hungry Indians are for AI tools. ChatGPT now has 73 million daily active users in India. This is more than double the number in the entire United States. Gemini has 17 million daily users in India. Perplexity, which hardly anyone knew about a year ago, now gets more than one-third of all its global users from India.
For students, these free tools are game changers. Students use ChatGPT to understand difficult subjects, prepare for exams, and write better essays. One PhD student in Hyderabad uses free ChatGPT and Gemini for three hours daily to find research citations, improve writing, and create presentation images.
For business owners and entrepreneurs, AI tools help with customer service, marketing, and decision-making. Small business owners can now use advanced AI to improve their operations without paying thousands of rupees. With four hundred thousand new jobs expected from AI by 2025, and nine million new jobs by 2035, these tools prepare workers for the future.
For content creators, these AI tools generate images, write scripts, and help plan videos. Creators can produce more content faster and with better quality. With access to video generation, image editing, and writing assistance, small content producers can compete with larger teams.
For regular people, AI can help with everyday tasks like learning new skills, solving problems, and accessing information in languages they understand best. A delivery driver using the Zepto app now gets instructions in Marathi instead of struggling with English. This matters because it means AI serves everyone, not just English speakers.
The Big Picture: It Is About More Than Free Access
These companies are not just being generous. They are investing heavily in India because they see the future. When millions of Indians use these tools, they generate valuable data about how people think, what they ask, and how they use language. This data helps companies improve their AI for everyone globally.
India is becoming the central testing ground for the next generation of AI technology. The company that wins over Indian users today will likely be stronger everywhere tomorrow. That is why the competition is so fierce right now. Both ChatGPT and Gemini now count India as their biggest daily user market, with 28 percent of Gemini’s 61 million global daily users coming from India.
As you use these free AI tools in the coming months and years, remember that you are not just getting free access to powerful technology. You are also part of something much bigger. You are helping shape what artificial intelligence becomes in India and the world. Whether you are a student, a business owner, or someone just curious about AI, this is the best time to explore what these tools can do for you.
Conclusion
What is happening right now is not just a wave of free subscriptions. It is a turning point. India has become the place where the future of AI is being tested in real life, at a massive scale, across languages, income levels, and everyday use cases. These companies are betting that once Indians learn to rely on AI for studying, working, creating, and solving daily problems, they will never go back.
For users, this moment is rare. Powerful tools that once felt out of reach are now sitting in your pocket, free to explore. The skills people build today will shape careers, businesses, and opportunities for years to come. For the companies, the reward is trust, data, and long-term loyalty in the world’s most dynamic digital market.
So this giveaway is not charity. It is a strategy. And for India, it is an open door. Those who walk through it now will be better prepared for the AI-driven world that is coming fast.
Source: OpenAI will make ChatGPT Go free for Indian users for a year & OpenAI to offer ChatGPT Go free for a year in India
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