Perplexity vs Google: A tug of war for India’s AI mind space

The two AI firms are using different strategies to gain users, as they face not just each other but also major rivals like Meta, OpenAI, Anthropic, and Apple

For those who remained on the fence about paying for a premium artificial intelligence (AI) subscription—often due to the prospect of substantial recurring costs—there is some good news. Google has announced it is offering a free annual AI Pro subscription for university students in India, while Perplexity has partnered with Bharti Airtel to offer a Pro plan free for a year to the telco’s 360 million mobile, broadband, and direct-to-home (DTH) customers.

To snapshot the costs involved, Perplexity’s Pro subscription is priced at ₹19,900 per year, while Google charges ₹19,500 for their AI Pro plan. (Official images)

To snapshot the costs involved, Perplexity’s Pro subscription is priced at ₹19,900 per year, while Google charges ₹19,500 for its AI Pro plan. These are being offered free for a year, after which standard charges will apply. Mind you, these specific plans aren’t the top-tier offerings in Google’s and Perplexity’s lineups, but they do unlock a higher threshold of functionality nonetheless.

“This partnership is an exciting way to make accurate, trustworthy, and professional-grade AI accessible to more people in India—whether a student, working professional, or managing a household. With Perplexity Pro, users get a smarter, easier way to find information, learn, and get more done,” co-founder and CEO of AI company Perplexity Aravind Srinivas said.

India’s AI landscape, envisioned

The cost of free subscriptions

Perplexity has the numbers locked in, and they realise even the smallest percentage changes can reap big returns. In a scenario where every one of the 360 million Airtel users unlocks the Perplexity Pro plan and asks one query a day, it would cost the AI company between $0.36 million and $2.7 million per day—based on publicly available token pricing of $0.002–$0.015 per 1,000 tokens for advanced models such as GPT-4 and Claude, and assuming an average of 500 tokens per query (combined input and output). That translates to as much as $985 million a year in infrastructure costs.

Even if just 1% of the 360 million subscribers—that is, 3.6 million—transition into paying subscribers 12 months later, it would result in ₹71.64 billion, or $862 million, in annual revenue for Perplexity.

Over the summer, Perplexity was reportedly in talks to raise $500 million in funding at a valuation of $14 billion. This funding, once it materialises, will allow the AI company to compete with big tech companies including Google and Meta, as well as the Microsoft-backed OpenAI.

“This collaboration will bring the powerful and real-time knowledge tool for millions of users at their fingertips, at no extra cost,” vice-chairman and managing director of Bharti Airtel Gopal Vittal said.

Catch them young?

Google is looking at similar calculations, though their eligibility criteria are stricter — only students with valid educational institution identification, and who are above the age of 18, can apply for a year of free Google AI Pro subscription. The timing also works well for the subscription offer to last well past the final exams next summer.

While Google doesn’t mention any expected numbers regarding how many students are eligible for this offer, they do point to Google and Kantar research released earlier this year, which notes that among the respondents, 95% of students in India who use Gemini feel more confident in their daily lives.

India has remained an important market for Google. One of the most significant recent moves by the tech giant was the introduction of AI Mode in Google Search in India.

Google’s AI Pro plan unlocks a more versatile Gemini 2.5 Pro model, Deep Research, Gemini Live with camera access and screen-sharing context, the Flow filmmaking tool that uses the Veo 3 model, a more powerful NotebookLM, and 2TB of cloud storage on Google Drive. Earlier today, Google announced new advanced AI features in Search. “Gemini 2.5 Pro and Deep Search are rolling out in AI Mode to help with more complex questions and research — available now to Google AI Pro/Ultra subscribers,” Google CEO Sundar Pichai wrote in a post on X.

Different proposition, same AI promise

Perplexity’s proposition, from its early days, has been different. In addition to their own Sonar models—including Sonar Pro and R1 1776 Reasoning—the app also allows users to choose between Anthropic’s Claude 4.0 Sonnet Advanced or Claude 4.0 Opus Thinking models, xAI’s latest Grok 4, OpenAI’s GPT-4.1 or o3-pro, and Google Gemini 2.5 models. Often, the auto-select mode, which picks the model best suited to a specific query, works best.

For both companies, the free subscription tiers are mid-spec in their scheme of things. Google’s most powerful plan is called AI Ultra (which costs ₹24,500 per month) and unlocks even higher usage limits and 30TB of cloud storage. For Perplexity, the Max subscription (priced at $200 per month, or around ₹17,000) unlocks all models for research, with no usage restrictions.

Perplexity recently released the Comet web browser—the world’s first AI browser—which is currently available as early access to Max subscribers. Srinivas insists Pro users will also get access soon.

Free for now, priceless for the future

The visible competition between Perplexity and Google, with India as the host, represents a microcosm of the broader global AI race. Both companies are leveraging different strategies to capture user share in this crucial market. They aren’t just competing with each other, but also with the significant investments that Meta, OpenAI, Anthropic, and Apple are making.

And if there were to be a proverbial cherry atop the AI cake, a burgeoning user base from India would provide Perplexity and Google with that crucial trove of data—helping with localisation, and capturing the nuances and sensitivities that would hold upcoming models in good stead.

Vishal Mathur is Technology Editor for Hindustan Times. When not making sense of technology, he often searches for an elusive analog space in a digital world.