Will Perplexity "overshadow" OpenAI?
I read in TechCrunch today that Perplexity is trying to dominate the Indian market, which could potentially increase the number of users (and thus compete with OpenAI).
Perplexity is trying to attract more users by offering a free 12-month Perplexity Pro subscription – normally worth $200 – to all 360 million Airtel subscribers. (That is the cost for them.)
Do you think @Perplexity is doing it right?
Because the catch is monetisation – the purchasing power of India is simply not the purchasing power of the American market.
What strategy do you think would help them increase not only the number of users but also their profit?
I am attaching the current revenues for both (OpenAI vs Pplxty). 🙈
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I don’t think it will surpass OpenAI.
They’re completely different products with completely different audiences.
But I’m in love with Perplexity Comet. I’ve had access to their new browser for the past 3 days, and it’s an amazing addition. It really saves you a lot of time if you use AI regularly. It’s like having an AI menu always with me. We’re constantly talking.
P.S.
It’s invite-only for now. If you have access to Comet, you get 2 invites per day to share with friends.
If anyone’s interested, feel free to DM me on Twitter to share an invite.
@byalexai That's why I am posting it – because I know you love Comet. As soon as I read this news, I recalled you.
@byalexai @busmark_w_nika Really love pplx. I dont use any openAI products atm. Gemini, Claude, and PPLX. I think PPLX will be the new google. I dunno what OpenAI is doing TBH, they are slacking. Their agentic coding models are so so. PPLX is way better at AI search. OpenAI really need to step it up. Also mistral just launchd deep search today. So pplx isnt alone with deep search anymore. What a time to be alive 🚀
@byalexai @sentry_co Hopefully, they will get more users. I just think that this move is not economically beneficial for them (when I take into account the economic situation and purchasing power in India compared to other countries).
@byalexai @busmark_w_nika If you consider that PPLX is something you dont do very often. As appose to coding, which devs just cant get enough of. Both cost 20$ a month. One probably costs 1% in true cost. and the other cost 4000% when hardcore devs use it. Cursor had to raise price overnight 1000% just to cover the extreme case users.
@busmark_w_nika So it was a trap, huh? And I fell for it that easily? xD
I guess Google will probably release something similar to Comet soon. Rumor has it they’re working on this type of browser too, so I wouldn’t be surprised if it shows up soon.
To me, Perplexity is more of a competitor to Google than to OpenAI. OpenAI is like Apple – everything polished, with a higher-end brand. Perplexity is really cool, but it definitely doesn’t give off that same premium feel.
@byalexai You created a great parallel between OpenAI and Apple. I will use it :D (:
@busmark_w_nika @byalexai google's RAG is already competing with the retrieval-based LLMs, we're showing client brands being surfaced in days across Perplexity, SGE, and you.com with properly structured and (especially) distributed content.
Triforce Todos
Smart move for growth, but tough challenge for monetization. Giving away Pro to 360M users builds reach, but can they convert when the free year ends? They will need local use cases + a freemium model that actually hooks people. Not sure about “overshadowing” OpenAI yet but it’s a strong regional play for sure.
@abod_rehman I think they thought like this: We will have a bigger number of users, good user stats and maybe some conversions. But INR ≠ USD. Totally different market and mindset. (I do not want to offend anybody but in many cases is like that.)
@allnash My reckon is that it will not be successful (unfortunately).
@allnash because I do not think that the purchasing power of Indian users can equal to purchasing power of e.g. Germany or the US. Only when they really acquire most of them (in terms of convincing them to purchase the product).
Droidrun
Hard to compete right now, OpenAI just released their new browser and has a stronger foundational position. Personally, I’m more curious to see when Google enters the race—they’ve got the most powerful dataset by far.
@pe_lae It feels like Google is sleeping (tho they have Gemini), it is hard for them to compete with AI because they were first, and I think that Google doesn't promote their AI effort enough.
Droidrun
@busmark_w_nika I think Google will strike back, but on the enterprise level.
The consumer market is hard to enter right now. But I agree that the level of marketing is quite poor.
Jupitrr AI
Its easy to do that for them actually. India is indeed a price sensitive market. Its also a big advantage for Airtel (the network company they partnered with) that might now get adopted by more startups and corporate offices just for this.
Perplexity will definitely get more exposure, more data.
However, (I am not saying this with any data source) majority of the Indian users don't even need the pro subscription. They are fine with the free chatgpt for most of their tasks. So, this plan might also just flop.
@lakshya_singh True true. I really think they should focus on more economically prosperous countries.
This is such a fascinating discussion, thanks for starting it @nika and shoutout to everyone here for sharing real insights! 🙌
I genuinely admire Perplexity’s bold move with Airtel , it feels like a “go broad, then go deep” strategy, and while risky from a monetization angle, it could spark long-term loyalty if executed well. The data advantage alone is massive.
But I do wonder…
Can Perplexity localize features and use cases enough to truly serve Indian creators, students, and professionals?
@nika @suvam_deo What do you mean by localisation? Can you give an example?
@nika @busmark_w_nika
Great question !
By localization, I don’t just mean language ,though that’s part of it.
I mean things like:
Education-focused tools that align with India’s exam culture (UPSC, NEET, GATE, etc.)
Regional language interfaces & responses, not just Hindi but Bengali, Tamil, Telugu, Marathi, and beyond
Use-case templates for Indian small businesses — from shop owners to content creators to solopreneurs
Integration with platforms used heavily in India like Flipkart Seller Hub, Zerodha, or even UPI apps
Even cultural tone in answers formal/informal switch, festival-based prompts, context-aware phrasing
We’ve seen platforms like YouTube, ShareChat, and even WhatsApp thrive because they went deep into India’s internet, not just over it.
Would love to see Perplexity explore something like koo
did with multilingual accessibility or even what Byju's tried with regional tutoring.
Done right, it’s not just product-market fit , it’s trust-market fit.
Curious if Perplexity’s team is thinking in this direction 👀
@nika @suvam_deo Maybe you should reach out to them to see whether they count with this. It is an extremely complex thing and only someone who is India-born can handle this precisely :)
@nika @busmark_w_nika Yeah maybe It's too much complex but i just stated my case study:)
LLMHub
We just launched perplexity with a twist @LLMHub and totally free haha, I agree openai already has the chat layer locked down. We are looking to expand in segments like collaborative chat and we are seeing success.
@prateek_jannu I tried it – first thing: It doesn't remember my prompt after signing up. Can you pls fix it?
BTW I like UI/UX design :)
LLMHub
@busmark_w_nika Hey @busmark_w_nika thanks for trying it out, we save your chats only after you sign up to save on memory costs, if you were signed out those chats are considered temporary. Thank you so much for the feedback we value opinions from users like you!
@johny_d Who do you think will acquire it?
@busmark_w_nika I have some mixed feelings about this that it may or it may not benefit PPXL.
Firstly, thanks to Airtel’s 360 million subscribers who get 12-month free access to Pro plan, PPXL has beaten ChatGPT to become #1 app on India App Store. This is definitely huge for a company trying to win the world’s second most populous country and 5th largest economy.
Secondly, my question is will this “surge” necessarily translate into long-term paid subscribers growth for PPXL? I mean, yes, many of them will choose to stick with Pro plan post their free period but how many of them? Being an Indian myself, I know firsthand that the Free-to-Pro conversion rate is very low and companies of all shape and size struggle to convince and convert users post free trial because India represents a mixed demography of tech-savvy and non-tech savvy users so how many convert into long-term paid users will be a question for PPXL to ponder upon.
On the contrary, this might actually increase their churn rate in the next year’s revenue reports as this “honeymoon period” would have been over for the majority of these users. And this will do more harm than good to the company's bottom lines.
And finally, OpenAI may not just sit back and watch their growth being overtaken by competitors. They might decide to strengthen their efforts on the Indian market and may come up with something similar or even stronger to tackle PPXL. In fact, earlier this year, Sam Altman made a visit to India where he announced the company's plan to establish a data centre in the country as a response to growing data residency concerns among businesses and govt. agencies alike.
For now, all I can say is that whether PPXL or OpenAI take the bigger share of the market, it’s the end users that will win.
@moingshaikh Didn't know about that data centre. Thank you for letting me know. The thing is, tho they want to have more users in the Indian market, they will need to push prices of the program down so people in India can afford it. This can result in earning less compared to what they would have earned in the US.
@busmark_w_nika I agree.
But a case can be made that if it is more popular and becomes a household name in India, the talent in India will find use cases of the platform that they could simply implement in other markets.
user numbers does matter a lot at the end of the day.
@akifqureshi You mean that people from India will build stuff via Perplexity and market it beyond India? In such case, there should be a percentage (share revenue system for PPLXTY).
I'll answer from my own perspective. I pay for ChatGPT because I use it every day. I use it for work and for personal tasks. And I think many paid Chat subscribers would agree with me.
Perplexity is a smart search engine, and personally, I don't need to search and analyze information on a daily basis. That's why I don't use the paid subscription for the Pro version. Perhaps if Perplexity had a feature that solved a specific user problem, they would use it every hour, and then they would pay for the Pro version.
I agree with the comment below that these are two different products with different audiences. They solve different problems, so I don't think it's right to compare them in terms of revenue and number of users.
This is classic VC game at play. Get a ton of users by offering things for free, get market share. Perpelxity has played it smartly by trying to get some market share away from OpenAI.
Ultimately, their valuation is decided by how many users they have and not how much revenue they bring. Perplexity will be acquired by Google, Microsoft or OpenAI - and they know that's the only way to make money.
@thebigk Ooouu, I haven't been thinking about this way. Smart move then :D
@vshpandey96 I would say the opposite – first, find the way to monetise it, then scale in numbers... because when you do not have a plan to monetise but have many users, you will end up on customer support handling people's requests for free :)
Bold move by Perplexity, India’s scale is unmatched, but monetization is a different beast.
Free Pro access via Airtel is brilliant for distribution, but turning that into revenue will need more than subscriptions. Maybe the real play is embedding into everyday workflows: student research, apps, even voice assistants. If they can become the default layer for discovery, monetization could follow through partnerships, enterprise tools, or even contextual commerce.
@vivek_sharma_25 More people mentioned this so it comes to my mind... 🤔 Is this an AI answer? 😂
That Airtel deal is bold 360 million users is serious distribution. But distribution without clear monetization is a leaky bucket.
Perplexity’s value prop right now is ""search, but better."" But Indian users already trust Google deeply, and most aren’t yet paying for search-like tools especially when contextual search isn't a felt need at the mass level.
To convert free into profit in India, I think they’d need one of two things:
A wedge in enterprise or education (where trust + budgets exist)
Or a deep local use case (vernacular support, student search, exam prep, even medical research)
Right now, Perplexity looks like a top-of-funnel play but India doesn't always reward top-of-funnel unless you're solving a clear pain.
Curious what others think: does the product need to evolve for the Indian market, or just wait for user behavior to catch up?
@priyanka_gosai1 IMO Perplexity should first with a clear monetisation model first, not acquiring the amount of users (tho it is still important), at the end of the day, you need money to pay people and bills. 🤷♀️
They should make these graph colors even more similar to create even more confusion!!!
@a_t33 yep, the graphic design is a little bit confusing (aka they f*cked the graphic up) :D