CHENNAI: Just a month after Google announced a free one-year subscription to its premium AI toolset, Gemini 2.5 Pro, for college students in India, US-based AI-powered search platform Perplexity has now rolled out a similar offer. Customers of India’s second-largest mobile operator, Bharti Airtel, can now access a free one-year subscription to Perplexity Pro.
Valued at approximately ₹17,000 annually, the Perplexity Pro subscription is now available at no cost to Airtel users across mobile, broadband, and DTH services.
According to Airtel, the offer is accessible to its entire subscriber base of around 360 million users. While the official announcement highlights postpaid and broadband users, many prepaid customers have also reported successfully activating the offer via the Airtel Thanks app. To claim the subscription, users must log in to the app, navigate to the "Rewards & OTTs" or "Credits" section, and tap on the Perplexity Pro banner.
Perplexity Pro includes access to AI models like GPT-4.1, Claude, and Grok 4, along with features such as file uploads, AI-powered image generation, reasoning-based search, dashboards, document parsing, and limited API access. The service is available across Android, iOS, Windows, Mac, and web browsers.
This partnership positions Airtel as a frontrunner in integrating AI into telecom and digital services, offering powerful tools to students, professionals, and everyday users seeking smarter, faster ways to search, analyze, and create content using AI.
In June, Google had offered a similar benefit to Indian college students—free access to Gemini 2.5 Pro, Deep Research, AI video generator Veo 3, and enhanced limits on NotebookLM—as part of its push to expand AI adoption in education.