Airtel to offer 1-year Perplexity Pro access to users

New Delhi, Jul 17 (PTI) Bharti Airtel has partnered with AI-powered search engine Perplexity to offer 12-month Perplexity Pro premium subscription free of cost to its 360 million customers.

The move assumes significance as it marks Perplexity's first partnership with an Indian telecom company.

It comes at a time when NVIDIA-backed Perplexity (the AI-powered search and answer engine that offers real-time responses to users in a conversational language) is positioning itself to challenge the dominance of Alphabet.

Perplexity has a free offering with search features but the Pro version provides advanced capabilities for professionals and heavy users.

Perplexity Pro includes more daily Pro searches per user, access to advanced AI models (like GPT 4.1, Claude) and the ability to select specific models, deep research, image generation, file uploads and analysis, as well as Perplexity Labs.

The Pro subscription, worth Rs 17,000, is now available for free, for all Airtel customers (Mobile, Wi- Fi and DTH) for one year, according to a release. Airtel users can avail this offer by logging on to the Airtel Thanks App.

Gopal Vittal, Vice Chairman and Managing Director, Bharti Airtel, said, "This collaboration will bring the powerful and real-time knowledge tool for millions of users at their fingertips, at no extra cost. This first-of-its-kind Gen-AI partnership in India is focused on helping our customers navigate the emerging trends in the digital world with confidence and ease." Aravind Srinivas, Co-founder, CEO of Perplexity, described the partnership as an exciting way to make accurate, trustworthy, and professional-grade AI accessible to more people in India, including students, working professionals, or those managing a household.

Citing an example, the release said for a student, say from Rajkot, Perplexity Pro can churn out processes of legitimate research on the web, learning and collaboration and help organise content logically and in an easy-to-understand manner.

For a family vacation to a new destination, Perplexity Pro can build the itinerary based on time, specified budgets and must-cover activities given by the user in a few seconds. PTI MBI HVA