Perplexity a leading AI company has been running one of the biggest AI growth

Perplexity, a leading AI company, has been running one of the biggest AI growth experiments in recent history The promotion, which started in July 2025 and ended last month, saw an unprecedented surge in app downloads and monthly active users, with some estimates suggesting that Perplexity acquired over 56 million new users during the seven-month period.

According to data from Sensor Tower, a leading app intelligence firm, Perplexity's downloads in India skyrocketed 9 million downloads. This was more than nine times the number of downloads the company had accumulated during the entire first half of 2025.

Read More: Reddit to Bring Viral Stories to Life with New Video Reddit Experience

However, once the free Airtel subscription window closed in January, Perplexity's downloads plummeted sharply, with Sensor Tower estimating that only 3.3 million new users downloaded the app between February and July. Despite this decline, Perplexity's monthly active users remained remarkably resilient, peaking at around 22 million in October before dropping to nearly 14 million in July.

Perplexity's senior insights analyst, Abe Yousef, attributed the company's ongoing usage to the fact that subscribers retained Pro for a year from activation.