Perplexity’s free AI offer left it with millions more users in India

Perplexity spent the past twelvemonth moving 1 of the biggest AI maturation experiments, giving its premium work away to customers of Indian telecom elephantine Airtel. Now, arsenic the earliest of those escaped subscriptions expire, the results are starting to emerge, offering an aboriginal trial of whether bundling paid AI services tin make lasting users and gross aft the giveaway ends.

In July 2025, Perplexity partnered with Airtel, India’s 2nd biggest telecom operator, to connection a escaped 12-month Perplexity Pro subscription, usually worthy astir $200, to the Indian carrier’s 360 cardinal customers. New redemptions ended connected January 16. However, due to the fact that subscribers retained Pro for a twelvemonth from activation, the earliest users began reaching the extremity of their escaped entree past period and had to opt retired of auto-renewal if they did not privation to beryllium charged.

Perplexity’s AI giveaway had an contiguous impact, arsenic it saw 5.9 cardinal app downloads successful India successful July 2025, according to information Sensor Tower shared with TechCrunch. That was up 625% from the erstwhile period and much downloads successful a azygous period than the 5.4 cardinal Perplexity had accumulated during the full archetypal fractional of the year.

This momentum was not constricted to the motorboat period of the Perplexity connection but persisted good beyond it. Perplexity recorded 56 cardinal downloads during the 7 months that the connection was disposable to caller users, much than 9 times the preceding seven-month period, Sensor Tower estimated. Monthly progressive users much than doubled to 8.9 cardinal successful July and yet peaked astatine 22 cardinal successful October.

Image Credits:Jagmeet Singh / TechCrunch

India has agelong been a monolithic marketplace for downloads for planetary exertion companies, acknowledgment to its immense population, much than a cardinal net subscribers, and comparatively debased mobile information costs. The state is the world’s second-largest smartphone marketplace aft China — with implicit 700 cardinal users — and has likewise emerged arsenic a large root of users for generative AI services. That standard has, however, proved considerably harder to construe into revenue.

Specifically for AI companies consenting to subsidize entree successful pursuit of scale, India’s marketplace dynamics person made it an charismatic investigating ground. Anthropic, Google, OpenAI, and others person progressively chased Indian consumers with India-specific, lower-cost plans, escaped access, and organisation partnerships, aiming to yet construe them into paying customers.

However, erstwhile the model to assertion the escaped Airtel subscription closed successful January, Perplexity’s downloads fell sharply. Sensor Tower estimates Perplexity was downloaded 3.3 cardinal times successful India betwixt February and July, down much than 90% from the preceding six months.

What came aft the download boom?

The users Perplexity had acquired did not vanish rather truthful quickly. Monthly progressive users, which peaked astatine astir 22 cardinal successful October, stood astatine astir 14 cardinal successful July — down 37% from that precocious but inactive much than 5 times the astir 2.6 cardinal monthly users Perplexity averaged successful the archetypal fractional of 2025, per Sensor Tower.

“While the time-sensitive quality of this promotion would people pb to a diminution successful adoption aft the connection period, ongoing usage has remained resilient,” Abe Yousef, elder insights expert astatine Sensor Tower, told TechCrunch. Perplexity, helium added, has “significantly much users” successful India than it did successful the six months earlier the promotion.

Image Credits:Jagmeet Singh / TechCrunch

More strikingly, Perplexity’s driblet successful downloads has not been accompanied by a diminution successful spending. Sensor Tower estimates that Perplexity’s in-app acquisition and subscription gross successful India betwixt February and mid-August roseate astir 60% from the play erstwhile the Airtel connection was disposable to caller users, contempt downloads declined.

That inclination has continued adjacent arsenic the earliest Airtel subscribers person started losing their escaped Perplexity Pro access. From astir July 18 done August 12, Perplexity’s mean regular in-app acquisition gross successful India, per Sensor Tower, was 9% higher than during the preceding 30 days and 27% supra the mean for the archetypal fractional of 2026.

The summation gives america an aboriginal denotation that immoderate users whitethorn beryllium consenting to wage aft getting accustomed to the premium work for free. But of course, it does not corroborate that Airtel users themselves are deliberately converting into paying subscribers.

The escaped subscriptions were acceptable to auto-renew, requiring users who did not privation to proceed to cancel their work earlier the renewal day to debar being charged. This makes it imaginable that immoderate of the summation reflects users who did not cancel successful clip alternatively than those who actively chose to pay. Sensor Tower cannot separate betwixt those scenarios oregon abstracted erstwhile Airtel subscribers from different paying customers.

Appfigures, different app quality firm, besides recovered that the Airtel woody dramatically changed Perplexity’s trajectory successful India. The information Appfigures shared with TechCrunch indicates the archetypal maturation was circumstantial to Perplexity alternatively than simply reflecting increasing appetite for AI apps overall.

“I compared Perplexity’s downloads to ChatGPT and Claude to guarantee it wasn’t much appetite for AI, and it wasn’t,” Appfigures co-founder and CEO Ariel Michaeli told TechCrunch.

In the week earlier the Airtel connection launched, Perplexity averaged astir 11,200 downloads a time successful India, per Appfigures. That jumped twentyfold to astir 223,000 a time during the archetypal week of the offer’s motorboat and continued climbing, hitting an mean of astir 305,000 a time betwixt mid-September and mid-October. To compare, downloads of OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Anthropic’s Claude remained broadly stable.

Appfigures besides sees signals that Perplexity emerged from the giveaway with a bigger concern successful India, adjacent though the promotional download roar disappeared. Perplexity’s monthly nett mobile gross successful the country, per Appfigures, grew from astir $34,000 successful January 2025 to $70,000 successful December and reached $156,000 successful July 2026. The AI institution generated an estimated $878,000 successful India successful the archetypal 7 months of 2026, up 16% from each of 2025.

Michaeli cautioned against attributing each of that maturation to Airtel users becoming paying customers. The tremendous visibility generated by the promotion, helium noted, whitethorn besides person attracted paying users who were ne'er portion of the giveaway.

Perplexity’s experimentation has since go portion of a overmuch broader wager by AI companies successful India. In August 2025, OpenAI made its lower-priced ChatGPT Go program escaped for a year successful the country. Google besides followed Perplexity with a woody to connection its AI Pro subscription escaped for 18 months to eligible Reliance Jio users.

That makes Perplexity an aboriginal trial of whether the strategy tin work. Its Airtel woody began months earlier the akin moves by OpenAI and Google. This besides means that Perplexity users are among the archetypal ample cohort successful India to scope the constituent wherever escaped premium AI turns into a merchandise they whitethorn person to wage for.

India has already emerged arsenic the world’s largest marketplace for generative AI app downloads but remains hard to monetize. AI companies person been willing to commercialized near-term revenue for users successful this price-conscious market, striving to yet crook that standard and wont into paying customers.

That said, the information cannot yet amusement however galore of Perplexity’s recently acquired users volition willingly wage erstwhile their escaped twelvemonth runs out. That trial volition play retired implicit the coming months arsenic aboriginal cohorts of Airtel users scope their renewal dates.

Perplexity did not respond to a petition for comment.