Google’s new ad touts free Gemini Pro for Indian students

Google has announced that Indian students can now access its premium Gemini Pro artificial intelligence service free of charge for one year, marking the latest effort by the technology company to expand its presence in the Indian market.

The offer, which Google values at Rs 19,500 per user, includes access to Gemini Live conversational AI, the Veo 3 video generation tool, integration with Google Apps and Workspace, and 2TB of cloud storage. Students must register before 15th September to qualify for the free access.

Google has launched a new advertisement campaign to promote the initiative, titled "Attention students, upgrade Google Gemini for Free!" The advert depicts a college setting where a student expresses frustration with numerical assignments, saying numbers make her "head spin". 

A fellow student introduces her to Google Gemini, now available free for Indian students. The advertisement then shows a montage of students celebrating the various features included in the free offering.

The campaign's YouTube description emphasises the comprehensive nature of the package: "Students, your Rs 19,500 Google Gemini upgrade is on the house! Google Gemini Pro is FREE for all students for one year. Sign up before September 15 to get free access to Veo 3 for creating amazing videos, Gemini in Google Apps and Workspace, and 2TB of storage for all your media."

This student-focused initiative represents part of Google's broader strategy to strengthen its position in India's technology sector. The company has been investing in various artificial intelligence projects specifically designed for the Indian market, recognising the country's significant potential as both a consumer base and development hub.

The free Gemini Pro offering follows several other Google initiatives aimed at the Indian market. The company has been developing AI tools for India's agricultural sector, including the Agricultural Landscape Understanding (ALU) Research API and the recently launched Agricultural Monitoring & Event Detection API (AMED API).

These tools provide field-level agricultural data and have been adopted by companies like TerraStack for rural intelligence systems.

Google has also been working to improve AI language support for Indian languages through initiatives such as the Amplify Initiative, developed in collaboration with IIT-Kharagpur.

This project aims to create localised datasets that help AI models better understand India's linguistic and cultural diversity. The company previously launched Project Vaani, which has contributed speech data across 86 Indian languages.

The free Gemini Pro initiative comes at a time when technology companies are increasingly focusing on India as a key growth market. By removing cost barriers to premium AI tools, Google aims to familiarise students with its ecosystem whilst potentially building long-term user loyalty.

And Google isn’t the only one playing the accessibility role. Perplexity, another AI platform, has partnered with Airtel to provide free services to users connected to the telecom service provider.

The company revealed on Thursday that it has partnered with Perplexity, providing its premium Perplexity Pro subscription to all Airtel customers, free for one year. Which, otherwise, would amount to an annual price of Rs 17,000.