Bharti Airtel teams up with Perplexity to bring premium AI search to India for free
It’s a win-win that might just grow their user base and help them stand out in India’s crowded digital space.
Bharti Airtel seems to be on a partnership spree. After bundling Apple TV+ and Music earlier this year, and striking a deal with Starlink, the telco is now offering something entirely different: AI.
Starting this week, if you use Airtel in India, whether on mobile, Wi-Fi, or DTH, you can claim a free 12-month subscription to Perplexity Pro, the premium tier of the rising AI-powered answer engine. Usually priced at ₹17,000 (~$197), the subscription gives you access to advanced AI models like GPT-4.1 and Claude, deep research tools, image generation, and even file analysis.
It’s Perplexity’s first major telecom partnership in India, and for Airtel, it could be another move to deepen its digital ecosystem. With GenAI becoming central to how people work, learn, and make decisions, Airtel likely wants position itself as a gateway to cutting-edge tools.
Kelechi Edeh
From a college student pulling research for assignments to a professional planning a work trip, this Perplexity-Airtel tie-up puts a smarter search experience in more hands, without the high price tag. All users have to do is log into the Airtel Thanks app to activate it.
The deal also speaks to how aggressively AI platforms are now looking to scale in India. For Perplexity, which is already answering over 150 million questions a week globally, the partnership could be a major boost in user adoption in a country that's currently home to ChatGPT's largest user base.
Plus, with Reliance Jio, India's biggest telco, racing ahead on hardware and bundled services, Airtel seems to be betting on digital partnerships that its ~387 million users might actually find useful, and that might just help it win over a few more.
Emmanuel Oyedeji
