Tech giants’ efforts to expand the employ of artificial intelligence in India could soon reach a tipping point as companies abandon free promotions in hopes of converting the world’s fourth-largest economy to a windfall of paid subscribers.
India emerged as the world’s largest market for AI-generating app downloads in 2025, extending its lead over the United States as installs grew 207% year-on-year, according to market research firm Sensor Tower.
Companies including OpenAI, Google and Perplexity have introduced expanded free premium offers to accelerate user growth in a price-sensitive market. Leading AI companies are also supporting India in its quest to become a global AI hub. Last week’s major AI summit in Fresh Delhi was attended by leaders including OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Anthropic’s Dario Amodei and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, a sign of the country’s growing importance in the global AI race.
Now some of those early promotional activities are coming to an end. Embarrassment ended in January, a combined Pro offer with Indian telecom operator Airtel, while OpenAI ChatGPT Go is free in India is no longer availablepotentially setting the stage for a clearer test of how many newly acquired users converted to paid subscribers.
Despite the sturdy growth in downloads, India still generates a disproportionately petite share of AI app revenue, accounting for about 1% of in-app purchases, even though it accounts for about 20% of global GenAI app downloads, according to Sensor Tower data shared with TechCrunch, highlighting the monetization challenge in one of the industry’s fastest-growing markets.
The data shows that GenAI app adoption in India has accelerated rapidly through 2025, with downloads peaking in September and October, with a year-on-year growth rate of around 320% and 260%, respectively. However, the enhance in usage did not fully translate into revenue growth. In November and December 2025, revenue from AI-powered app purchases in India declined by 22% and 18% month-on-month, respectively. ChatGPT’s revenues fell even more sharply – down 33% and 32% in the same period after the November launch of free access to ChatGPT Go for less than $5 – reflecting the short-term impact of aggressive promotional activities.
ChatGPT still generates over 60% of GenAI’s app revenue in India, which means changes to its pricing strategy could significantly impact overall market performance.
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In addition to promotional activities, Sensor Tower attributed the rise in popularity of the GenAI app in India last year to a number of modern products, including the debut of platforms such as DeepSeek, Grok and Meta AI, as well as improvements to mainstream chatbots such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity. Viral interest in AI-generated content also helped drive adoption, with content creation and editing tools accounting for seven of the top 20 most downloaded GenAI apps in India in 2025.
The enhance in the number of users was equally noticeable. According to Sensor Tower, in 2025, India accounted for approximately 19% of the global user base of leading AI assistant applications, overtaking the United States at 10%. ChatGPT continues to dominate the Indian market in terms of monthly busy users, although rivals including Google Gemini and Perplexity have also seen rapid growth following promotional offers. According to previous data from Sensor Tower, ChatGPT was the most downloaded GenAI app in India and globally in 2025. Earlier this month, OpenAI’s CEO said the chatbot now has over 100 million weekly busy users in India.
The promotional push in India reflects a broader strategy by AI companies to reduce pricing friction in a highly value-conscious market, and we anticipate that early adoption and user engagement will translate into stronger long-term retention once free access periods expire, said Sneha Pandey, research analyst at Sensor Tower.
India’s attractiveness lies in its expansive digital base. The country has more than one billion internet users and about 700 million smartphone owners, making it one of the largest potential markets for artificial intelligence services in the world and a key battleground for user growth.
However, user engagement in India still lags behind more mature markets. In 2025, users of leading AI chatbot applications in the US spent approximately 21% more time per week on them than their counterparts in India, and logged an average of 17% more sessions on Sensor Tower.
“In-app AI revenues are likely to see significant but gradual improvement as users become more deeply integrated into these platforms, which makes sustained engagement paramount,” Pandey told TechCrunch.
She added that pricing pressure in India is likely to remain elevated given the country’s teenage and value-conscious user base, which makes cheaper tiers, telecom bundles and micro-transaction models vital for long-term customer retention.
ChatGPT will remain the clear market leader in India heading into 2026, with 180 million monthly busy users in January according to Sensor Tower, followed by Google Gemini with 118 million, Perplexity with 19 million and Meta AI with 12 million. The numbers highlight both the scale of India’s AI capabilities and the growing challenge for companies to turn rapid user adoption into sustainable revenue.
Google, OpenAI and Perplexity did not respond to requests for comment.