Over the past year, millions of Indians have quietly are gaining access to some of the world’s most advanced artificial intelligence tools - ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini and Perplexity AI - all paying less to nothing. In countries like the United States or the United Kingdom, these services charge monthly fees or restrict premium features. But in India, the same technology is available almost entirely for free.

It’s a puzzling situation at first glance. These systems cost enormous amounts of money to build and operate. Each query runs on large clusters of high-end computing chips, consuming energy and data centre capacity. So why would global technology companies effectively give away their most valuable products in a market as large as India?

The answer lies in business strategy:

India today is one of the biggest digital frontiers in the world. More than 750 million people are online, and most of them are under 35. They’re mobile-first, speak multiple languages, and are increasingly using the internet for work, education and entertainment. For global AI companies, this is the next great user base to win over - and winning it early matters more than making money immediately.

Offering powerful AI tools for free is a way to get millions of people familiar with the technology before competitors do. Once habits form - using AI for writing, learning, coding, or searching - people are less likely to switch platforms later. That familiarity builds what companies call “stickiness.” The strategy is similar to what Facebook and Google did two decades ago: make it free, get everyone on board, and then build the business model later.

What is less obvious but perhaps more critical is data. Unlike previous plaforms such as Facebook, India's data is more critical for the AI companies to train their models. India’s digital population produces a diversity of language, accent, and context that’s unmatched anywhere else. When people across the country use ChatGPT or Gemini in English, Hindi, Tamil or Marathi, it helps the companies behind these systems train their models to understand the world more accurately. India, in effect, becomes both a testing ground and a massive open classroom for AI.

The economics of India also play a role. Most people here are not going to pay $20 a month for a chatbot, even one as capable as ChatGPT Plus. Rather than locking out hundreds of millions of potential users, the companies choose to let them in for free — betting that scale will eventually pay off through partnerships, enterprise deals, or cheaper local versions of premium plans.

There’s another, subtler reason. Global technology firms are competing for visibility and influence in a country that is fast becoming central to digital regulation and AI governance. By being available, accessible and useful to Indian users, they build goodwill - both with the public and with policymakers. It’s a long-term investment in reputation.

The result is that India today enjoys something of an AI dividend. People can access tools that cost money elsewhere, and in the process, the country becomes an important part of the global AI experiment. For users, it may feel like a lucky break. For the companies, it’s a deliberate move - an investment in the world’s fastest-growing digital market.

The free phase won’t last forever. At some point, subscriptions, ads, or enterprise models will follow. But for now, the business logic is simple: if artificial intelligence is going to shape the future, the companies building it want India’s billion users to be part of that story - and to start using their platforms before anyone else’s.

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