Airtel offers free Rs 17,000 Perplexity Pro subscription to users; here's how the stock moved

Bharti Airtel Ltd has partnered with Perplexity, an AI-powered search and answer platform, to offer a free 12-month subscription to Perplexity Pro for all its 360 million customers. The subscription, normally priced at Rs 17,000 per year, is now available at no cost to Airtel's mobile, broadband and DTH users through the Airtel Thanks app.

Perplexity is an advanced search engine that gives accurate, real-time answers in a conversational way. Unlike traditional search engines that just list web pages, Perplexity provides direct answers that are easy to understand and explore further.

While Perplexity has a free version, the Pro version offers more powerful features. These include access to advanced AI models like GPT-4.1 and Claude, deeper research capabilities, more daily searches, image generation, file uploads and Perplexity Labs -- a tool to help users bring their ideas to life.

This is Perplexity's first partnership with an Indian telecom company.

Gopal Vittal, MD and Vice Chairman of Bharti Airtel, said, "We are excited to bring Perplexity’s cutting-edge AI tools to our customers at no extra cost. This partnership will help users navigate the digital world more easily and confidently."

Aravind Srinivas, Co-founder and CEO of Perplexity, added, "This partnership will help students, professionals, and homemakers access smart and reliable AI tools for learning, productivity, and daily use."

With this move, Airtel aims to make AI tools more accessible and useful for all its customers across India.

On the stock-specific front, Airtel shares were last seen trading marginally lower by 0.13 per cent at Rs 1,933.90 in Thursday's trade. At this price, the stock has climbed 21.17 per cent on a year-to-date (YTD) basis.