Google and Reliance Are Handing Out AI Like It’s Festival Season
In a move that feels part tech strategy and part Diwali giveaway, Google has teamed up with Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries to bundle its AI Pro subscription with Jio 5G plans at no extra cost. The deal gives Jio users 18 months of free access to Google’s premium AI tools, worth around ₹35,100 or about US $396.
For that price of zero, subscribers get Gemini 2.5 Pro, higher limits for generating images and videos using Nano Banana and Veo 3.1, expanded access to Notebook LM for research and studying, and two terabytes of cloud storage across Gmail, Drive, Photos and WhatsApp backups, according to The Times of India.
The rollout starts with Jio users aged 18 to 25 and will later include everyone. Think of it as an AI buffet for a billion people, and Google is footing the bill.
Why Google Loves India
India is the world’s most populous nation and the second-largest internet market. It’s also the testing ground for global AI expansion. Tech companies see India as the ideal place to collect diverse data, fine-tune models and build massive user bases before exporting the same playbook elsewhere. Business Standard describes the partnership as a clear reflection of how U.S. tech firms view India as the next big frontier.
The partnership also lands just months after Perplexity joined forces with Bharti Airtel to give 360 million customers free access to Perplexity Pro. India’s two biggest telecoms are now fighting an AI giveaway war, and the users are winning.
Not Just a Giveaway
Behind the generosity is a serious play for dominance. Reliance’s AI arm, Reliance Intelligence, is working with Google Cloud to bring Gemini Enterprise to Indian businesses. The companies will also build pre-made AI agents and expand access to Google’s Tensor Processing Units in India.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai said the deal will put “cutting-edge AI tools in the hands of consumers, businesses and India’s vibrant developer community.” In other words, Google wants to make sure every Indian startup builds its next big thing using Gemini.
The Bigger Picture
At Reliance’s 48th annual meeting in August, Ambani announced new partnerships with Google and Meta to boost AI infrastructure through a new subsidiary called Reliance Intelligence. The two companies pledged ₹8.55 billion, roughly US $100 million, to develop India’s AI capacity.
Meanwhile, OpenAI is making its own push into India by offering free access to its ChatGPT Go plan starting November 4. The race to capture India’s AI market has officially begun.
Ambani said, “Through our collaboration with strategic and long-term partners like Google, we aim to make India not just AI-enabled but AI-empowered.” For Google, it’s also a clever way to give away the future now and monetise it later.
