Google has announced a strategic partnership with Reliance Intelligence to offer its premium AI Pro subscription plan to Jio users for free for 18 months. The plan bundles Google’s most advanced AI models, such as Gemini 2.5 Pro, along with 2 TB of cloud storage. The offer will initially roll out to Jio Unlimited 5G users aged 18–25 before expanding nationwide.
The timing of this announcement comes just a day after OpenAI made its ChatGPT Go plan free in India, and shortly after Perplexity’s partnership with Airtel in July. These developments point to a race among major AI players to broaden their Indian user base through bundled telco partnerships.
What is the new Google-Jio deal?
In a blog post published on October 30, Google announced a “strategic partnership with Reliance Intelligence to offer Google’s AI Pro plan.” The plan, valued at approximately Rs 35,100, will be offered at no extra cost for 18 months. Users aged 18–25 with the Jio Unlimited 5G plan can avail of this offer via the MyJio app.
Users will get the following services for free:
- Access to the Gemini 2.5 Pro model in the Gemini app
- Higher limits for image and video generation with the Nano Banana and Veo 3.1 models
- Expanded access to the research tool NotebookLM
- 2 TB of cloud storage across Google Photos, Gmail, and Drive
Third Major Move in India’s AI ‘free-for-all’
Google’s announcement comes amid strategic plays by major AI companies to capture the Indian market:
- Perplexity x Airtel: In July 2025, Perplexity partnered with Airtel to offer a free 12-month Perplexity Pro subscription worth Rs 17,000. This move aimed to rapidly scale its user base by partnering with India’s second-largest telco.
- OpenAI’s Direct Offer: A day before Google’s announcement, OpenAI declared that the ChatGPT Go plan would be “free for all Indian users for 12 months.” This coincided with OpenAI’s first DevDay Exchange event in Bengaluru, signaling a direct-to-consumer push to strengthen its market position.
- Google’s Previous Offer: Google had earlier offered college students a 12-month Gemini AI Pro plan. The new Jio partnership scales this effort from a student demographic to a much larger audience.
Why This Matters
The Google-Jio partnership highlights how telcos are becoming key distribution channels in India’s vast market. Google gains access to the country’s largest subscriber base through Jio, while Perplexity has adopted a similar partnership-driven approach. In contrast, OpenAI continues to pursue a direct-to-consumer model.
All these companies appear to be following a “scale first, monetise later” strategy, as noted by MediaNama founder Nikhil Pahwa. This is reminiscent of Jio’s own early strategy of market capture by offering free services, a move that helped solidify its current market dominance.
Advertisements
Google’s scaling efforts are evident in the breadth of its offer, which…
Source link
Disclaimer
We strive to uphold the highest ethical standards in all of our reporting and coverage. We blogs.grocliq.com want to be transparent with our readers about any potential conflicts of interest that may arise in our work. It’s possible that some of the investors we feature may have connections to other businesses, including competitors or companies we write about. However, we want to assure our readers that this will not have any impact on the integrity or impartiality of our reporting. We are committed to delivering accurate, unbiased news and information to our audience, and we will continue to uphold our ethics and principles in all of our work. Thank you for your trust and support.
Website Upgradation is going on for any glitch kindly connect at [email protected]
