Airtel Rethinks Its Power Play With Perplexity Deal

Artificial intelligence (AI) is evolving and expanding at an unthinkable pace, reshaping the way we live, work, or even look at this world. Global AI giants have started forming a beeline to establish a strong foothold in the Indian market, like Pereplexity did this week with its Airtel partnership.

The AI giant inked a pact with India’s second largest telecom operator Bharti Airtel to deepen its footprint in the world’s second-largest internet market.

Airtel’s massive user base, comprising more than 360 Mn prepaid, postpaid and broadband customers, will receive a free one-year subscription to Perplexity Pro.

Priced at $200 (around INR 17,000) annually, Perplexity Pro includes reasoning-based search modes, image generation, file analysis, API credits, priority support, and experimental tools for building reports, dashboards, spreadsheets, and basic web apps.

What The Airtel-Perplexity Deal Means

The partnership signals Perplexity’s aggressive go-to-market strategy. Globally, too, the company has teamed up with leading telecom providers like T-Mobile in the US and SoftBank in Japan to bring AI-powered search to the mainstream.

With India quickly emerging as one of the most important markets for AI, where players like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini are already making strong inroads, Perplexity’s partnership with Airtel gives it a major leg up.

By tapping into Airtel’s massive user base, Perplexity has firmly placed itself as a go-to AI tool for everyday users.

For Airtel, on the other hand, this partnership isn’t just about offering another offering — it’s a strategic retention lever for a class of users whose interests are more skewed towards ‘intelligence’ (think research work) than ‘entertainment’.

Overall, it is a win-win situation for both Perplexity and Airtel, as the AI major gets access to a huge market and telcos get to offer more services to their users with little cash burn.

“Telcos in India are at a point where they can’t keep increasing prices. Their differentiation has to come from bundled value. What used to be an INR 49 pack is now INR 250. So, if a customer gets a $200 AI subscription for free, that’s a compelling reason to stay,” Aman Goel, cofounder, Greylabs AI.

A Page Out Of A Proven Playbook

Over the past five years, Airtel and Jio partnered with major OTT platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+ Hotstar and Zee5, bundling subscriptions with prepaid and postpaid plans.

That bundling helped OTTs scale distribution at low acquisition cost, while giving telcos a strong reason to improve ARPU (average revenue per user) and reduce churn.

Now, AI tools like Perplexity are stepping into the same role, offering high-perceived value, just as OTT did a few years ago.

“On the one hand, telcos are eager to ride the AI wave to position themselves as tech-forward brands. But beyond the optics, there’s a more pressing need, and they must prepare their networks for the surge in AI-related data consumption. Without serious infrastructure upgrades, branding alone won’t be enough,” a founder of a major AI startup said.

Meanwhile, Perplexity is trying to become the default search bar in Chrome. They’re experimenting with growth hacks and smart distribution to increase usage, Goel added.

A Perplexity Masterstroke?

With AI tools becoming mainstream, AI giants are pushing hard for relevance in a crowded market. OpenAI’s ChatGPT remains the leader in global adoption, followed by names like Perplexity, Google’s Gemini, and others.

“Most people don’t use Gemini yet. It’s still playing catch-up. ChatGPT has become the default for anything factual. But for real-time news or updates, I go to Perplexity. It’s like a smarter version of Google Search,” Goel said.

This distinction in consumer perception is key, and Perplexity folks are aware. While ChatGPT offers deep reasoning, conversational capabilities, and a ‘more encyclopedic tone’, Perplexity is carving out a space in real-time AI-powered search, which plays well in markets like India, where breaking news, current affairs, and timely insights drive search volume.

“It’s like ChatGPT is Wikipedia, while Perplexity is Google — but better, faster, and more to the point,” Goel added.

By bundling its premium tier for free, Perplexity is counting on Indian users to build habit loops over the year, which could convert into paid subscriptions over time.

“Perplexity is smart to use Airtel as a distribution pipe. Once a user builds the habit in the first year, many of them will continue. Even a 2–3% conversion on a base of 100 Mn users is massive,” Goel said.

From a unit economics perspective, too, the Airtel deal makes sense. According to industry estimates, despite the $200 retail price, the actual per-user cost for Perplexity could be as low as $2, due to the high-margin nature of AI software services. This cost, experts suggest, can easily be absorbed by Airtel as part of its customer acquisition or retention budget.

For Perplexity, meanwhile, it means millions of free trials at scale, helping build brand equity and product engagement in a high-growth market.

“It’s a win-win. Perplexity gets access to a massive user base at minimal cost, and Airtel improves retention by offering real value to users. This kind of bundling will only increase, travel insurance, OTT, AI services, whoever owns the customer will keep monetising the distribution,” Goel pointed out.

This emerging fad is set to redefine how software startups scale in India. Reliance, too, is said to be exploring partnerships with OpenAI for ChatGPT subscriptions.

AI For The Next Billion

AI adoption in India is accelerating. According to Nasscom, nearly 45% of Indian enterprises are actively exploring or implementing GenAI pilots, and usage among consumers has also surged.

Perplexity’s mobile-first approach, combined with real-time results, conversational search, and multi-model access, makes it appealing to digital-first Indian users. More importantly, partnerships like the Airtel deal help lower the barrier to entry for first-time AI users in tier II and III cities.

Meanwhile, the broader implications are being closely observed. As AI becomes integral to personal productivity, learning, travel planning and smarter and more efficient searches, consumers may begin to expect such services to be bundled with telecom, cloud, or OTT services.

The Perplexity-Airtel partnership could well become a template for how other software companies enter India — not through standalone subscriptions, but through bundles with aggregators like telcos, UPI apps, or even OEMs (smartphone manufacturers).

We’re at a stage where AI is no longer futuristic. It’s mainstream. Whoever controls distribution will control user behaviour — and the Perplexity-Airtel partnership is a glimpse of what’s to come.

[Edited by Shishir Parasher]

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