Starting this week, millions of Indians will get one year of free access to ChatGPT’s new “Go” AI chatbot.
But this isn’t just an act of generosity. It’s the latest move in a global race to capture the world’s fastest-growing digital population — India.
Over the past few weeks, Google, OpenAI, and Perplexity AI have all rolled out free or discounted access to their AI products across India.
- Google has partnered with Reliance Jio, India’s largest mobile network, to offer AI tools bundled with data packs.
- Perplexity AI teamed up with Airtel, the country’s second-largest telecom operator, to provide similar access to its AI search platform.
- And now, OpenAI is joining the fray by making its new low-cost ChatGPT “Go” model freely available for a year.
It’s a calculated strategy, say analysts — one that could define the next phase of the global AI revolution.
Hook Them Early, Monetize Later
“The plan is to get Indians hooked on generative AI before asking them to pay for it,” explains Tarun Pathak, an analyst at Counterpoint Research.
India’s appeal lies in two things: scale and youth.
With over 900 million internet users, most of them under 24, India is the world’s largest pool of young, digital-first consumers. This generation lives, works, and socialises online, creating an enormous playground for AI tools to learn, adapt, and evolve.
Bundling AI tools with telecom plans isn’t new — it’s a strategy reminiscent of India’s 2016 internet boom, when Jio slashed data costs and brought hundreds of millions online. Now, the same playbook is being rewritten for the AI era.
Data: The Real Goldmine
India also offers something AI companies crave — diverse, real-world data.
As millions of users interact with chatbots, translators, and voice assistants across hundreds of Indian languages and dialects, they generate invaluable input for AI training.
“The more unique, first-hand data they gather, the better their models become,” says Pathak. “India’s diversity makes it a living lab for generative AI.”
AI models trained on Indian data will not only understand multiple languages and cultural nuances but also handle local contexts — from regional food habits to banking queries in vernacular speech.
Regulation: India’s Advantage — For Now
Unlike Europe, where strict AI transparency laws are already in place, or South Korea, where AI-generated content must be labelled, India’s AI regulation is still evolving.
Currently, India has the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act 2023, but its enforcement and AI-specific rules are pending. This gives tech firms a flexible, experimental environment to test mass rollouts.
“This is where the government will eventually need to step in,” says Prasanto K. Roy, a Delhi-based technology analyst. “Users are giving away huge amounts of data, often without understanding the implications. We need smarter, light-touch regulation that evolves with the technology.”
Experts believe that once the DPDP Act is fully enacted, India will have one of the most advanced privacy frameworks in the world — balancing innovation with accountability.
The Endgame: Market Capture and Model Improvement
For AI companies, India’s open digital market is a dream.
Even if just 5% of free users convert to paid plans, that’s tens of millions of subscribers — a scale unmatched outside China.
But beyond revenue, the true reward lies in model improvement. Every prompt, conversation, and query from Indian users helps train the next generation of AI systems — more culturally aware, linguistically flexible, and globally resilient.
In other words, India is not just a market — it’s a massive data engine powering the evolution of global AI.
The Bottom Line
The global AI giants are betting big on India’s digital future. Their free offers are not acts of generosity — they’re strategic investments.
By giving away premium AI access today, they’re training tomorrow’s models, creating brand loyalty, and embedding themselves deep into the daily lives of the world’s youngest internet population.
AI’s future might be written in Silicon Valley —
but it’s being spoken, typed, and trained in India.