Why Big AI Companies Are Freeing Their Plans in India
Introduction
we will understand why big AI companies around the world are freeing their plans in India. As you know, two major AI companies, Google Gemini and ChatGPT, made their premium plans available in India.
Perplexity has already announced its plan for 36 crore Airtel users for a year. Now, Google’s Gemini will be free for Jio customers for 18 months. And ChatGPT’s Go plan for Rs 399 has been free for a year, but it has not been bundled with any telecom company, unlike Perplexity with Airtel and Google with Jio. So, today, we will understand why these companies are suddenly freeing their plans in India and how you can use this AI-free plan.
The AI Competition
So, first of all, as you know, ChatGPT has been around for 3 years and has sparked buzz across companies about building a generative AI app. Google, Perplexity, and Groq are also in this race, but ChatGPT is the most popular in the world right now.
So, all these AI companies have only two aims. First, to increase the number of users —i.e., more and more people should use it — and second, to earn money.
Why India?
So, first, let’s talk about user acquisition. There can’t be a better market than India to do that. There are 90 crore internet users here.
So, if you are getting such a big market, what will you do to take it over? First, you will make it free. American companies, you must have seen it before: whether it is Netflix or Amazon, they offered cheap plans for India, and our Reliance Industries’ Jio Telecom also offered cheap tariffs to people, trapped them, and later became India’s biggest telecom operator. So, the formula for the companies is to get used to it, and when you get used to it, you will get the money.
The Real Reason: Training AI Models
But there is another reason that AI companies are giving so much attention to India and making it free. The reason is that in India, it is not just about 90 crore users. There are different languages here. There is a lot of cultural diversity.
So, when we Indians give our prompt to AI, it is not only answering our questions; it is also training its AI model. So, it is not just about cheap plans or free plans. The companies that will take advantage of it will also train their models, and their models will get better. Firstly, the number of AI users will increase, and the model will also improve. So, this is their selfishness.
Premium vs Free Plans: The Engagement Game
So, you must have seen the difference between a cheap plan and a premium plan. So, you must have noticed that all these AI apps keep trapping you. If you give a prompt to GPT, then it answers your question. After you answer, it will ask, “Do you also want to know this?” You will say yes. So, it will answer more. Basically, it wants you to interact as much as possible and not leave this app.
It spends more time on AI apps. It is also perplexing that you will get options that you also want to know about. It wants to increase engagement so people don’t leave your app.
But you must have seen what happened till then. ChatGPT will tell you that your free plan time is over. Now, it will either answer the lower model or, if you want the answer from GPT-5, wait 3 hours or buy this plan. The reason for putting a limit was that AI companies set limits on how many questions you can ask, how many videos or photos you can create, and how many documents you can upload.
The Cost of AI Processing
Let me explain the reason. See, when you give a prompt, it means when you ask a question or say something in that box or when you write something, then what happens is that the question, which is a data centre, you must have heard that there are various data centres, like Google, which is also a big data centre in India.
In that data centre, there are GPUs, which are the brains of the computers or of this entire data centre. So you asked some questions, like how much India’s GDP is, then it converts that into a token, and by reading that token, it answers your question.
As we have said earlier, what has AI done? It has gathered all the knowledge in the world and all the information it has, so when you ask it, it searches for the answer and gives you the answer. ChatGPT Atlas Browser Will Replace Chrome in 2026.
Now, what happens is that it has given the answer, but when the process of providing the answer is underway, two things happen. One is that a lot of electricity is used, and as electricity costs increase, the heat rises, which means the data centre needs to keep it cool. So a lot of water is also spent on this.
One assumption is that when we ask an AI using a tool, the cost depends on the model: it costs at least 30 paise and can go up to 2 rupees. So when you are asking a question, it is not free; it is not free to answer your question, but now it is giving you the answer for free because it is also learning. When the model talks to us, it is also learning, so that is why they have made it free.
Token Costs and Politeness
In fact I remember the founder of open AI Sam Altman he said it was a big issue when you say chat GPT or any AI model thank you or please tell me this so when you say thank you, sorry when you write such questions it is also increasing our expenses because the tokens also increase like you wrote one word please, thank you, sorry so when we talk to someone in a polite conversation we do it like this when you speak to an AI model it increases your expenses.
Hence, he said people should be safe from this; however, if so many people write please, thank you, sorry, then the number of tokens increases and if the number of tokens increases, then the cost of processing increases.
Trillion Dollar Investments and User Acquisition
Now, with a lot of trillion-dollar investments coming into AI companies, they are not worried about their profits; they are getting a lot of money. You must have seen that AI companies are driving the stock market boom in America; their valuations are rising, whether it’s NVIDIA or others.
Hence, those companies want to acquire users first, we make people used to it, like you can say make people used to their tool, so that’s why instead of profit, they are focusing on user acquisition, and that’s why all these companies are making their plan free in India so that more and more people use it. If they use it more, they will get better training for their model.
Data, Privacy, and Opportunity
But now your question is what will be my data and privacy I am training it so why should I take this plan but see I have a suggestion that for this plan whichever tool you want to use take advantage of it ask questions whatever work you can get done you can get research done you can get photos taken whatever job you have AI can do all kinds of work.
so this free plan the limit was removed so the more you use it the more you will learn. You must have heard that Amazon said AI will reduce jobs in the coming days. They have reduced 14000 jobs in India. Also, you must have seen that IT companies have frozen their hiring; they are not hiring new people because of AI. Because of AI, people will not be needed. AI will do the work.
The Importance of AI Learning
So in this case AI learning has become more critical the founder of NVIDIA CEO said jobs will go to those who don’t know AI means if you want to stay in this market if you want to keep yourself active then learn AI and this premium plan which is free even if it is for a year then you may get used to having to pay but this is the time to learn don’t waste it, if you have any questions then we will try to answer your questions in the comment box.
