India has become the latest battleground in the global AI race, with Big Tech companies vying for dominance by giving their most powerful tools away for free. OpenAI is offering a year of complimentary access to ChatGPT Go, Perplexity AI has partnered with Airtel to roll out free Perplexity Pro subscriptions, and now Google has joined the fray with its most expansive AI bundle yet for Jio users.
The search giant recently announced a strategic partnership with Reliance Intelligence to offer its AI Pro plan—featuring the latest Gemini 2.5 Pro model—to Jio Unlimited 5G users at no additional cost for 18 months. The rollout will begin with users aged 18 to 25 before expanding nationwide to all eligible Jio subscribers. Users can activate the offer directly through the MyJio app.
As part of the bundle, Jio customers will gain access to Google’s flagship Gemini 2.5 Pro via the Gemini app, along with higher limits for generating images and videos using the Nano Banana and Veo 3.1 models.
On top of that, Reliance Jio recorded over 500 million users in India as of late 2025.
The offer also includes expanded access to NotebookLM for research and study, two terabytes of cloud storage across Google Photos, Gmail and Drive, and automatic WhatsApp chat backups for Android users. The bundle is collectively valued at around ₹35,100.
Following the announcement, many AI experts began asking why so many companies are suddenly offering free AI services in India. The simplest explanation is to capture a larger user base, though collecting consumer data to train models is also a significant factor.
“The main risk is that we might end up relying too heavily on Western tech companies that distribute their products in India. In contrast, China has developed and adopted its own domestic AI models successfully,” Ashutosh Singh, CEO and co-founder of RevRag.AI, told AIM.
Many are drawing parallels to Jio’s 2016 strategy, when the company offered free 4G access to everyone and began charging only after users became dependent on it.
“‘Anything given free loses its value’ is not applicable in the case of storage,” Harveen Singh Chadha of Sarvam AI quipped in a post on X.
He added that this is a clever move by Google to secure future revenue. Once users get accustomed to the convenience and storage benefits, especially younger ones, they’re more likely to start paying rather than delete or move their data elsewhere.
According to Sanchit Vir Gogia, chief analyst and founder at Greyhound Research, India has effectively become “ground zero for the global AI land grab”. In just a matter of weeks, OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini and Perplexity AI have all been made free, not out of philanthropy, but as a calculated move to shape user habits, train models and establish long-term market dominance.
Speaking about the impact on Indian AI startups, Ankush Sabharwal, founder of CoRover.ai, told AIM that there may be some short-term effects, primarily around understanding the evolving competitive landscape and identifying potential partnership opportunities.
“Things are still taking shape from the startup side, the large tech side and even from the enterprise customer perspective as everyone tries to understand where AI will create the most value and what real problems need solving,” he added.
Warning to India
Sabharwal added that India should not be treated merely as a market or a data source.
“If companies want to serve Indian users at scale, the ideal approach is to build here, deploy here and contribute to the local innovation and talent ecosystem,” he said. While offering free access is appreciated, he noted that true impact comes from meaningful investment and collaboration that create value and opportunity within the country.
Meanwhile, Gogia warned that telecom providers are fast becoming “digital power brokers”. He said what once served merely as a channel has now turned into a filter. Moreover, if a user’s first AI assistant comes preloaded with their data plan, questions of platform neutrality and user choice naturally arise.
“When Jio users default to Gemini and Airtel users to Perplexity, the illusion of discovery disappears,” he said, adding that what replaces it is a form of quiet, commercial gatekeeping.
Gogia further cautioned that this shift comes at a particularly risky time. India’s AI policy framework remains nascent, the Digital Personal Data Protection Act is yet to become operational, and no AI-specific regulations are in place. He pointed out that enterprise governance maturity remains low, even as sensitive data continues to flow into external models with little clarity around ownership, reuse, or jurisdiction.
“This dossier is a warning. AI platforms are not just distributing access; they are embedding themselves into national digital behaviour. They are rewriting norms: trust, neutrality, how value is created, and who captures it,” Gogia said in conclusion.
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