India has become the stage for one of the most consequential technology experiments of our time. In recent weeks, three of the world’s most influential artificial intelligence platforms — OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, and Perplexity — made their premium services free in the country.

To consumers, it looks like sudden access. To investors, it represents hyper-growth. But free AI is not democratisation. It is a structural takeover of cognition, behaviour, and market power in a policy environment nowhere close to ready.

India was not chosen for its purchasing potential. It was chosen because it is the perfect stress test for modern AI systems. Our digital behaviour — multilingual, code-mixed, voice-driven and unstructured — pushes models harder than Western markets ever can. For global

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