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· today in ai · 2026-08-18
Perplexity's India freebie kept its users
Archive item — written before sources were shown.
Perplexity's free year of Pro for Airtel's 360M customers drove 56M downloads; usage fell 90% once redemptions ended but 5x more users stuck around than before.
An analysis of Perplexity’s year-long free Pro giveaway to Airtel’s 360 million India customers found downloads jumped 625% in the promotion’s first month and totaled 56 million over seven months, nine times the prior period. New redemptions ended in January; by July, monthly active users had fallen 37% from their October peak but still ran five times higher than before the offer, and India revenue rose roughly 60% once the free tier stopped absorbing new signups.
sources
- 01Perplexity's free AI offer left it with millions more users in Indiatechcrunch.com · reporting
Rami Steitieh