Perplexity Denies Offering Downgraded Pro Plan to Airtel Users

Over the past few days, Perplexity has been accused by various users on social media and forums of offering a toned-down version of its Pro Plan, which was made available for free for a year to all Airtel users across India. 

However, in a statement to The Financial Express last week, the company confirmed that these accusations were “absolutely false”. 

Jesse Dwyer, head of communications at Perplexity, told the media outlet, “I can assure you that it is absolutely false that Airtel customers get a different version of Perplexity Pro than our Pro (paid) subscribers,” Dwyer said. 

“We are accustomed to misinformation about Perplexity online and how some people on Reddit and X use misinformation about Perplexity in order to boost their follower counts, but India is very dear to us as a company, and we would hope to be able to correct this misunderstanding for Indian readers,” he added. 

This was primarily in response to a thread on Reddit, where a user reported experiencing slower and inferior performance compared to the Pro version bundled with Airtel, which required a paid subscription. The user also mentioned not encountering any charts or visual breakdowns in the responses. 

However, in a test performed by AIM on the Pro plan offered by Airtel, the tool did provide graphs for responses in the research mode.

Perplexity Pro plan, valued at $200 (~₹17,000) annually, includes advanced AI search features such as access to powerful models like OpenAI’s o3, Claude 4.0, xAI’s Grok 4 and more. Users can access Pro and Reasoning search modes, file analysis, image generation, API credits and priority support. 

Moreover, users can access the Labs feature, which uses advanced tools to manage complex projects involving report creation, spreadsheets, dashboards and basic web apps.

Perplexity is available through the app on Android, iPhone, Windows and Mac, as well as on a web browser.