Why are Perplexity & Google giving away AI for FREE? What's the real plan?

(1)

Both just launched 1 year of free AI access.

Not charity. Not generosity.

No bullshit.. to the point 👇

(2)

First, understand this:

AI is not search. But it wants to replace search.

Google makes 80%+ of revenue from ads on search.

If Perplexity (or any AI agent) becomes your first stop instead of Google .... Google's $300B empire is at risk.

(3)

So why the free offers?

Simple: User acquisition at scale.

If you own the interface where people "ask questions", you own the market.

It’s a land grab ...whoever controls the AI habits of the next billion users, controls the next Google.

(4)

Here’s the most underrated reason they’re going free:

Fine-tuning on real user queries.

No matter how good your model is, it’s dumb without user feedback.

You need billions of real-world queries + interactions to tune relevance.

That’s why they want your usage.

(5)

And Perplexity?

They are burning investor money to buy time and users.

They want to become the next Google, not the next Quora.

They know once people switch their “question habits”, it’s game over for whoever’s late.

(6)

What’s next?

After 1 year, once usage patterns are locked in:

... Paywalls will return ... Features will go behind subscriptions ... Business models will shift from "Pro users" to "Enterprise deals" & Search monetization (ads in AI)

They are buying time. And data.