Adobe Brings Express Premium Free To Airtel Users In India

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Author Connect2Connect

January 29, 2026

Through a partnership with Airtel, Adobe is offering its Express Premium subscription to millions of Indians at no cost for a full year.

This move is part of a larger strategy to establish its AI services in the world’s most populous nation.

Adobe Express is a content-first, task-oriented app that integrates tools and resources from Adobe’s entire ecosystem, including Adobe Fonts, Stock images, pre-made templates, and features powered by Photoshop, Premiere, and Acrobat.

It allows users to swiftly create and customize social media graphics, videos, posters, logos, ads, PDFs, and more using straightforward drag-and-drop tools, Quick Actions, and layered effects, making it easy to produce professional-quality content.

The paid version of Adobe Express, known as Express Premium, is priced at around Rs 4,000.

However, thanks to the partnership with Airtel, this plan is available for free across the country for one year.

Airtel boasts approximately 350 million subscribers in India.

Users can activate the Express Premium subscription through the Airtel Thanks app without needing a credit card.

Adobe isn’t the first tech company to team up with a major telecom provider in India to provide its AI tools for free to consumers.

OpenAI, Google, and Perplexity are also offering premium AI subscriptions worth thousands of rupees.

OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, is providing a full year of ChatGPT Go at no charge, a plan that usually costs Rs 399 per month.

Google has teamed up with Jio to offer users 18 months of Gemini Pro access, plus 2TB of cloud storage.

At the same time, Perplexity is giving Airtel customers free access to Perplexity Pro.

Google is also providing college students with a complimentary one-year AI Pro plan that includes 2TB of storage.

The strategy of tech companies like Adobe to collaborate with local telecom providers for long-term free access to their AI tools in India is a clever business strategy.

For Adobe, teaming up with telecom providers like Airtel means immediate access to huge user bases, established payment relationships (since users already pay their phone bills), trust in reputable telecom brands, and distribution through apps that people are already using, like the Airtel Thanks app.

Students are a key target audience for Express Premium.

A lot of Indian students already use Express a lot for school projects, personal interests, and social media content.

Offering Express Premium for free to all Airtel subscribers really boosts its value.

Whether it’s good or bad, the model is set up to fit into your daily routine, seamlessly integrating these AI tools into your life.

With global AI tech companies providing free access to their tools to draw in millions of users, there are concerns that India might turn into a testing ground for collecting data, fine-tuning models, and trying out AI applications on a massive scale before any other place.