Between October 2025 and early 2026, India became the place where paid AI subscriptions were given away. Reliance Jio bundled Google's AI Pro plan with its 5G recharges, OpenAI made its India-first ChatGPT Go plan free for a year, and Airtel bundled Perplexity Pro for its customers. Each of these was worth thousands of rupees a year on paper, and millions of people claimed them.
Nearly a year later, the offers are in very different states. One is still open, one has closed to new sign-ups, and one is about to start converting free users into paying ones. This post covers what each offer includes, who can still claim it, and the catches worth knowing — especially if you're using any of them for work.
Jio × Google AI Pro: still open, and the most valuable
Jio's official offer page gives 18 months of Google AI Pro from activation, valued at ₹35,100, to Jio users aged 18 and above on an unlimited 5G plan of ₹349 or more, prepaid or postpaid. It started with 18–25-year-olds and was later extended to all adult Jio users. You claim it from a banner in the MyJio app by signing in with a Google account, and it can be claimed once per mobile number.
It includes Google's top Gemini model with higher limits, Veo video generation, NotebookLM with expanded research limits, Gemini inside Gmail, Docs and Sheets, and — per Jio's current terms — 5 TB of storage shared across Photos, Drive and Gmail. Early coverage quoted 2 TB, so check your own Google One page to see what applies to you.
The catch is in one line of the terms: you must keep an active 5G plan of the qualifying kind for the entire 18 months to keep the benefits. Drop to a cheaper plan or let your recharge lapse, and the subscription can go with it.
ChatGPT Go: free year for everyone in India — renewals start in November
OpenAI launched ChatGPT Go in India in August 2025 at ₹399 a month, sitting between the free tier and ChatGPT Plus with higher message, image and file-upload limits and longer memory. In late October 2025 it announced that, from 4 November 2025, anyone in India who signed up during a promotional period would get Go free for 12 months, and existing Go subscribers would be moved onto the free year automatically.
OpenAI's terms require you to be in India and to add a payment method — a card or UPI — even though nothing is charged for the first 12 months. OpenAI didn't announce a fixed closing date for new claims and said it could end the promotion at any time, so check the Manage Plan page in ChatGPT for whether it's still available to you.
The important date is the renewal. At the end of your 12 months, the payment method on file is charged the then-current monthly Go price automatically. Anyone who claimed in the first days of November 2025 reaches that point in early November 2026. If you don't want to pay, set a reminder and cancel from Manage Plan before your renewal date; if you do, check the current price first, as it isn't locked to what it was when you signed up.
Airtel × Perplexity Pro: closed to new users
Airtel's offer gave its mobile, broadband and DTH customers 12 months of Perplexity Pro, valued at around ₹17,000, claimed from the Airtel Thanks app. Consumer-tech coverage in 2026 reports that it closed to new sign-ups in January 2026. If you activated it before then, your 12 months run from your own activation date, so the earliest claims are already expiring. Check Perplexity's account settings for your end date and whether a card is attached for renewal.
If none of these fit: the cheap paid plans
The giveaways pushed both companies to launch low-cost Indian plans too. ChatGPT Go costs ₹399 a month once any free period ends. Google launched Google AI Plus in India on 10 December 2025 at ₹199 a month for the first six months and ₹399 after that, with higher Gemini limits, video generation, deeper NotebookLM research, 200 GB of storage and sharing with up to five family members. For many individuals, one of these is enough without a full Pro plan.
The catch for businesses
All three offers are consumer plans tied to a personal account and, for Jio and Airtel, to a personal mobile number. That's fine for personal use, but think twice before running a business on them.
Data terms differ from business plans. Consumer AI plans generally let the provider use your conversations to improve its models unless you switch that off in settings, and they don't come with the data processing agreement a business plan offers. If you paste customer data into one, you're still the party responsible under India's DPDP Act — see our post on the 13 November 2026 DPDP deadline.
There's no GST credit. A free plan has no tax to claim, but when it converts to paid, a consumer subscription billed to an individual won't produce a GST invoice in your business's name. Our post on GST for foreign AI subscriptions explains the reverse-charge route for business plans.
Access ends when the person leaves. If an employee's personal Jio number or Google account holds the work, it goes with them.
A good pattern: use the free plans to find out which assistant suits your work, then pay for that tool's business tier — the plan that comes with a data processing agreement and admin controls — for anything involving client data.
What to do this month
If you're on Jio's offer, make sure the plan you recharge with keeps you eligible. If you claimed ChatGPT Go in November 2025, put a reminder a week before your renewal date and decide whether you'll pay. If you had Airtel's Perplexity Pro, check when yours ends. And if you're choosing between them for daily work, our tool pages for ChatGPT, Google Gemini and Perplexity set out pricing, INR billing and GST invoicing for each. Offer terms here are as published by Jio, OpenAI and Google, and as reported, up to 29 September 2026; they change without much notice.