Beyond Tomorrow: Want Perplexity Pro Or Google Gemini AI Pro For Free?
There is a vast difference in capabilities, performance and even rights when it comes to free and paid versions of AI tools.
This is anecdotal but I’ve increasingly noticed acquaintances move to paid versions of AI tools. There is a vast difference in capabilities, performance and even rights when it comes to free and paid versions and more and more users seem to be seeing value in professional versions, especially those who are leveraging AI tools for work. Or at the very least, users are trying out professional versions because as AI fluency is increasingly seen as an edge you need to stay ahead at work, it makes sense to pay for the best possible features.
If you are among those considering moving to a paid version of an AI tool, then you may not have to spend anything—at least not for the initial year or so. It is fascinating to note though that in no other category of software tools have professional versions been offered to the masses so quickly—ChatGPT, which set the GenAI ball rolling launched less than three years ago. Last year Google offered the professional version of Gemini free for a year to anyone who purchased their latest Pixel 9 smartphone. And today, Airtel is offering an annual subscription of Perplexity Pro free of cost to all its 360 million subscribers across India. Perplexity is an AI-powered search and answer engine and gives you access to multiple AI tools. Meanwhile, Google is offering Indian students over 18 free access to its Gemini AI Pro plan for a year.
These plans don’t come cheap if you have to buy them. The Gemini AI Pro plan costs Rs 19,500 a year, or around Rs 2,000 per month if you choose to pay monthly. While Perplexity Pro is priced globally around Rs 17,000 per annum. Of course, glowing press releases apart, Google, Perplexity or Airtel aren’t making the professional versions of these AI tools available just out of the goodness of their hearts. They want users to engage with these tools (which also helps improve the tools themselves) and get hooked. And pay up somewhere down the line.
Interestingly, Perplexity AI launched a new AI web browser called Comet recently. Will you replace Chrome, Safari, Firefox or Edge with a new browser that comes with the goal of transforming conventional browsing with agentic AI that can reason, act, and make decisions? Or will you perhaps wait for AI-powered version of Chrome or Edge?
Meanwhile, the one company that can’t seem to still get its AI strategy right is Apple. The tech bellwether has lost $640 billion in market value this year and there are calls for everything from acquisitions to leadership change. One of the companies that some investors want Apple to consider acquiring is Perplexity and there were signs that internal discussions on this possibility had taken place.
Here are some of the other interesting pieces around AI featured on our pages in the past few days:
- Does AI Actually Boost Productivity? Evidence Is Murky
- Anthropic Draws Investor Interest At More Than $100 Billion Valuation
- Who Is Varun Mohan — The Windsurf CEO Recruited By Google To Build Up Its AI?
Till next week,
-Ivor Soans
