Why Tech Giants Are Giving Premium AI Tools to Millions of Indians for Free

Global artificial intelligence companies are quietly launching one of the most aggressive expansion strategies the country has ever seen: giving away paid AI tools at no cost to Indian users. Over the past few weeks, tech giants including Google, OpenAI and Perplexity have begun offering free access to their premium chatbots and AI assistants directly to mobile customers across India.

The newest move came this week, when millions of Indians received a full year of access to ChatGPT’s lightweight paid model — known as “Go” — without spending a rupee. Just days earlier, Perplexity partnered with Airtel, India’s second-largest telecom operator, to bundle complimentary AI search tools with monthly data plans. Google followed a similar route, striking a deal with Reliance Jio to provide subsidised or free access to its AI assistant as part of standard mobile data packs.

At first glance, this might appear like benevolence or marketing generosity. But analysts say the real motivation is strategic — India represents one of the most valuable training grounds for the future of artificial intelligence.

Why India Is the Target

“India offers something no other open market can deliver: scale and youth,” says Tarun Pathak, analyst at Counterpoint Research. India has more than 900 million internet users, most of whom are young, active and constantly connected through low-cost data plans. Few countries offer this combination.

China has comparable scale, but its tightly controlled internet ecosystem makes it difficult for foreign AI firms to operate freely. India, on the other hand, has a massive, competitive digital economy with minimal barriers for global tech companies.

That makes India a gold mine not just for user numbers, but for data diversity. Every conversation, search query, voice prompt and image request generates real-world data from a wide range of languages, cultures, regions and usage patterns — exactly what AI companies need to improve their models.

“The more Indian users interact with these tools, the more first-hand data the systems learn from,” Pathak says. These interactions help AI systems recognize accents, dialects, cultural contexts, regional knowledge and multilingual prompts that Western datasets often lack.

A Future Customer Base — Built Today

Industry experts say this is not merely a giveaway, but an investment. The idea is simple: let people use AI for free today, create dependency and familiarity, and eventually turn a percentage of that userbase into paid customers.

“If just 5% of free users convert into paying subscribers later, it’s still massive,” analysts explain. India’s population scale makes even tiny percentages financially powerful. It’s the same strategy that once drove India’s mobile internet boom — extremely cheap data that eventually built one of the world’s largest online consumer bases.

The Hidden Trade: Data for Convenience

A key concern lies beneath the excitement — privacy. AI platforms learn from user input, and critics argue that millions of people may unknowingly trade personal information, habits and conversations for convenience.

Technology analyst Prasanto K. Roy says Indian consumers have historically been willing to give up data in exchange for free digital services — from social media to banking apps. AI is simply the next phase of that trend.

“Most users don’t read data policies. If the service is fast, convenient, or free, they agree,” Roy explains. He believes India will need stronger regulation as AI becomes more deeply embedded in daily life.

India’s Flexible Regulatory Environment

Unlike the European Union, where strict AI and data protection laws demand transparency and consent, India’s regulatory landscape is still evolving. The Digital Personal Data Protection Act (DPDP) 2023 outlines broad principles for privacy and handling personal data, but the final rules have not yet taken effect.

This temporary regulatory flexibility allows global companies like OpenAI and Google to run large-scale trials by bundling premium AI services into telecom packages — something that would face far more legal friction in Europe or South Korea.

Other regions already enforce stricter compliance:

• The EU’s AI Act requires detailed disclosure about how user data is handled.
• South Korea’s regulations will force companies to label AI-generated content and accept responsibility for misuse.

In these markets, the free-for-all approach seen in India would require extensive paperwork, transparency reports and user consent systems — slowing expansion.

Why Tech Firms See India as a Testbed

India gives AI companies something no lab can simulate: unpredictable, real-world usage.

People use AI models for:

• regional language queries
• college assignments
• shopping recommendations
• job applications
• health-related questions
• creative work and entertainment

Each of these interactions becomes valuable training data. A country with dozens of languages, hundreds of dialects and thousands of social contexts is an ideal training environment for AI models trying to become globally relevant.

The Missing Piece: Consumer Awareness

Experts warn that India’s AI boom will work only if people understand how these systems use their data.

Roy believes the government must balance innovation with responsibility: “Right now, light-touch regulation makes sense, but it can’t stay that way forever. Once we understand the risks, policy will need to evolve.”

The Business Logic

Offering AI tools for free may sound like a loss-making strategy, but the math tells a different story. If a service builds these habits early, users are likely to pay later — especially if AI becomes part of work, study or business.

And even if paid conversion stays small, India’s numbers make the model profitable. This strategy echoes what mobile carriers did in the early 2010s: ultra-cheap data, massive adoption, and millions of eventual paying customers.

India’s Future With AI

With nearly a billion users and the world’s fastest-growing digital economy, India represents the next major frontier for AI adoption. For now, tech giants are racing to plant their flags before competitors do — and they’re willing to subsidize huge portions of the market to make that happen.

For consumers, it may feel like a win: free cutting-edge AI tools, faster workflows, smarter apps. But as data becomes the fuel that powers these systems, privacy will remain the biggest unanswered question.