Perplexity’s Airtel Giveaway Is Turning Into a Real Test of Paid AI in India

Perplexity’s yearlong free AI deal with Airtel has already delivered a major audience boost in India, and early expiration data suggests the company may be retaining more users — and some revenue — even after the giveaway starts to roll off. The offer, launched in July 2025, was one of the biggest consumer AI distribution experiments yet, and its first results are now offering a glimpse of whether free premium access can create lasting paid demand.

The numbers point to a mixed but notable outcome: Perplexity saw a huge spike in downloads and active users in India after the Airtel partnership began, then a steep decline in fresh installs once the promotion ended, while usage and in-app spending remained materially above pre-deal levels. That combination makes the Indian market a critical proving ground for AI subscription strategies.

What happened with Perplexity and Airtel?

Perplexity partnered with Airtel, India’s second-largest telecom operator, in July 2025 to give millions of customers a free 12-month Perplexity Pro subscription, a service normally priced at roughly $200 a year. The deal was open to Airtel’s 360 million customers, with new redemptions ending on January 16, 2026.

Because users kept the free subscription for 12 months from the moment they activated it, the first group of Indian users only began reaching renewal time in mid-2026. That timing matters: it means the market is now moving from promotional acquisition into the more difficult phase of conversion, retention, and paid renewal.

Sensor Tower senior insights analyst Abe Yousef said the promotion naturally led to a later drop in adoption once the offer window closed, but he added that usage stayed resilient and that Perplexity still had far more users in India than it did before the Airtel campaign.

How big was the initial download surge?

The launch effect was immediate and unusually large. Sensor Tower data shared with TechCrunch shows Perplexity logged 5.9 million app downloads in India in July 2025, a 625% increase from the previous month. That single month alone exceeded the 5.4 million downloads the app had accumulated during the entire first half of the year.

The momentum did not disappear after launch week. Across the seven months when new users could still claim the Airtel perk, Perplexity recorded an estimated 56 million downloads in India — more than nine times the prior seven-month period, according to Sensor Tower.

Monthly active users also climbed sharply. Perplexity’s Indian user base reportedly more than doubled to 8.9 million in July and later peaked at about 22 million in October. By July 2026, monthly active users were still around 14 million, down from the peak but far above the roughly 2.6 million monthly users the app averaged in the first half of 2025.

Why India matters so much for AI apps

India is one of the world’s most important markets for consumer technology distribution because of its scale, its smartphone adoption, and relatively low mobile data costs. It is the world’s second-largest smartphone market after China and has more than 700 million smartphone users, making it a natural target for global AI companies trying to build audiences quickly.

But scale does not automatically translate into revenue. India is often a top market for downloads, yet many consumers remain highly price-sensitive, and paid conversion is harder than in wealthier markets. That is exactly why AI firms are increasingly using India to test whether subsidies, telecom bundles, and low-cost plans can build durable businesses.

Perplexity is not alone in this strategy. Anthropic, Google, OpenAI and others have introduced India-specific pricing, free periods, or distribution partnerships aimed at turning mass-market exposure into future subscriptions.

Did the download boom last after the free offer ended?

No, at least not in the same form. Once the Airtel redemptions stopped in January 2026, Perplexity’s download growth in India slowed dramatically. Sensor Tower estimates the app was downloaded 3.3 million times in India between February and July 2026, down more than 90% from the previous six-month period.

That is an important reminder that promotional growth can be time-bound. The demand spike was closely tied to the availability of a free premium product, rather than reflecting a broad, permanent surge in consumer appetite for AI tools.

Still, the aftermath was not a collapse. The company’s active-user base remained much larger than it had been before the offer, and some of those users appear to have begun spending on the app.

Are users converting to paid subscriptions?

That is the central question, and the early signs are encouraging but incomplete. Sensor Tower says Perplexity’s in-app purchase and subscription revenue in India rose about 60% between February and mid-August 2026 compared with the period when the Airtel offer was still open to new users, even as downloads fell.

More recently, between around July 18 and August 12, daily in-app purchase revenue in India was about 9% higher than in the previous 30 days and 27% above the average for the first half of 2026. That suggests the company may be seeing the beginnings of a paid habit among some Indian users.

However, the data cannot prove that former Airtel users are the source of the increase. The free subscriptions were set to auto-renew, which means some users may have been charged simply because they failed to cancel in time. Sensor Tower also cannot separate former Airtel subscribers from other paying users in India.

Yousef said the spending trend is an early sign that some users may be willing to pay after using the premium product for free, but the data does not confirm deliberate conversion from the Airtel cohort.

What do other app trackers say?

Another analytics firm, Appfigures, reached a similar conclusion: the Airtel partnership appears to have changed Perplexity’s trajectory in India in a way that was specific to Perplexity, not just part of a general boom in AI app demand.

Appfigures co-founder and CEO Ariel Michaeli said he compared Perplexity’s downloads with ChatGPT and Claude to make sure the jump was not simply due to broader interest in AI apps, and found that it was not.

According to Appfigures, Perplexity averaged about 11,200 downloads per day in India in the week before the Airtel partnership launched. That figure jumped to nearly 223,000 daily downloads in the first week of the campaign, then continued rising to roughly 305,000 a day between mid-September and mid-October.

For contrast, downloads of OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude were said to remain largely stable during that period, reinforcing the idea that Perplexity’s surge was driven by the telecom bundle and its associated marketing reach.

How much revenue did Perplexity generate in India?

Appfigures estimates that Perplexity’s monthly net mobile revenue in India rose from about $34,000 in January 2025 to $70,000 in December and then reached $156,000 in July 2026. Across the first seven months of 2026, the company generated an estimated $878,000 in India, about 16% more than it made during all of 2025.

That is still modest for a global software company, but it matters because it suggests the India strategy may be doing more than simply buying awareness. Even after the promotional wave subsided, the company appears to have emerged with a larger paid base than it had before the deal.

Michaeli cautioned, however, that not all of that growth should be credited to Airtel subscribers who converted after their free period. The deal likely lifted Perplexity’s visibility so dramatically that some people who were never part of the giveaway may have become paying customers simply because the brand became far more familiar.

How does Perplexity compare with rivals in India?

Perplexity’s campaign arrived before similar moves from major competitors, giving it a first-mover advantage in a market where AI companies are still learning how to monetize users. In August 2025, OpenAI made its lower-cost ChatGPT Go plan free for a year in India. Google also later offered its AI Pro subscription free for 18 months to eligible Reliance Jio customers.

That sequence matters because Perplexity’s users are among the first major Indian cohorts to move from a free premium AI product into renewal territory. The company is therefore becoming an early indicator of whether the rest of the industry’s India strategy can work.

What does this mean for AI subscription models?

The Perplexity experiment offers one of the clearest early snapshots of a strategy AI companies are increasingly trying: use mass distribution to get users hooked on premium features, then hope enough of them convert to paid plans once the free period ends.

That model has obvious appeal in India. The market is enormous, digitally connected, and highly responsive to promotions. It also presents a challenge: if users become accustomed to paying little or nothing for advanced AI, the path to sustainable economics becomes much harder.

Perplexity’s early evidence suggests the strategy can work to some extent. It certainly drove awareness, acquisition, and usage. The unresolved question is whether the company can maintain enough of those users when the automatic free ride stops and the real pricing decision arrives.

Why the auto-renewal detail matters

The renewal mechanism is essential to interpreting the revenue data. Because the Pro subscriptions were set to auto-renew unless cancelled, some of the recent increase in India spending may reflect friction rather than true willingness to pay.

That does not make the revenue less real, but it does make it harder to separate accidental conversion from intentional conversion. The best test will come later, once more Airtel users reach their renewal dates and the data can show how many keep paying after they have had time to decide.

What happens next for Perplexity in India?

The answer will unfold over the coming months. The earliest Airtel users are only now moving beyond the free period, and later cohorts will reach the same point at different times. That staggered schedule should provide a richer picture of retention, churn, and subscription behavior.

If a meaningful share of users remain after the free year ends, Perplexity’s India campaign could become a template for AI companies looking to expand in price-sensitive markets. If most users cancel, it will be a reminder that promotional reach and profitable retention are not the same thing.

For now, the evidence suggests Perplexity succeeded in creating a larger Indian audience and generating more spending than it had before the Airtel partnership. Whether that audience becomes a durable source of revenue remains the central business question.

Perplexity did not respond to a request for comment.

Key takeaways

• Perplexity’s Airtel partnership delivered a huge user spike in India and remains one of the largest consumer AI distribution experiments so far.
• Downloads fell sharply after the free-subscription window ended, but active users and in-app revenue stayed well above pre-deal levels.
• App intelligence firms say the growth was specific to Perplexity and not just a general rise in AI app demand.
• The data cannot yet prove how many Airtel users are converting into paying subscribers versus simply being charged through auto-renewal.
• Perplexity’s India results may influence how OpenAI, Google and others pursue paid AI growth in price-sensitive markets.

Timeline of the Perplexity-Airtel experiment

How reliable are the figures?

The figures in this story come from third-party app intelligence firms, mainly Sensor Tower and Appfigures, which estimate downloads, usage and revenue using market data and modeling rather than direct company disclosures. That means the numbers should be treated as informed estimates, not audited financial results.

Even so, the broad pattern is hard to miss. A free premium bundle with a major telecom carrier helped Perplexity win a much larger audience in India, and some of that audience appears to be monetizing. The next phase will determine how durable that audience really is.

If the coming renewal cycles show meaningful retention, Perplexity’s Airtel deal could stand as a landmark case in AI customer acquisition. If not, it will still have proved something important: in India, free access can produce scale fast, but scale alone does not guarantee a business.