We’re not being gifted AI. We’re being strip-mined.India’s 700 million smartphone users—young, multilingual, perpetually online—are the most valuable untapped data reservoir on earth. Second only to China in size, but far more diverse in language, culture, and behaviour. That makes our prompts, voice notes, half-Hinglish queries, and late-night existential rants pure gold for training the next leap in AI.
As CleverTap’s Jacob Joseph bluntly put it: “If you’re not paying for the product, you’re the product.” And right now, a billion Indians are the product—being delivered on a platter to Perplexity, Google, and OpenAI by our own telecom giants.The math is brutal and brilliant. Industry estimates suggest that even if just 5% of users eventually convert to paid subscriptions, that’s 35 million paying customers.
At roughly $20 a month, that’s $700 million in monthly recurring revenue—nearly $8–9 billion a year—flowing straight out of India into American bank accounts. One executive openly admitted: “Even if 5 percent converts, that’s still $160 million kind of revenue opportunity every month.”But the subscription money is just the appetizer.
The real prize is the data. As one data scientist said, “The more unique and first-hand data they get, the better their models become.” Indian data is uniquely rich—multilingual, emotionally expressive, context-heavy, full of code-switching between Hindi, Tamil, Bengali, and English in the same sentence.
That’s rocket fuel for generative AI that no other market can provide at this scale.Every time you upload a PDF to Gemini, correct ChatGPT’s pronunciation of your name, or ask Perplexity to summarize a Marathi news article, you’re handing over raw material that foreign companies will refine in California and sell back to the world—including back to us—at premium prices.
Amitabh Kant called it exactly what it is: “You are using data at zero cost and exporting at billions and billions for the billions of the world. This is neo-colonisation in very stealth mode.”And the worst part? We have no real defences.
Our brand-new Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act rules were notified on November 14, 2025—literally last week. Full enforcement is staggered, meaning we’re in a regulatory “grey zone” where companies largely police themselves.
When you tap “Claim Now” on your Airtel or Jio app to activate free ChatGPT Pro or Gemini, are you giving informed, specific, unconditional consent for your data to be used in AI training?Legal experts say no.Alvin Antony of GovernAI is clear: bundling AI access with your phone recharge violates the spirit—and likely the letter—of the DPDP Act. Consent must be “free, specific, informed, unconditional, and unambiguous.”
When the only way to get your regular mobile service is to accept a bundled AI subscription, consent stops being voluntary. It becomes coercive. These are classic dark patterns, potentially violating the 2023 Dark Pattern Guidelines and constituting unfair trade practices.
Even the regulators are confused. Is it TRAI’s job (because it’s a telecom bundle)? MeitY’s (because it’s an internet/AI service)? Or the Data Protection Board’s (because it’s personal data)? The Supreme Court’s Puttaswamy judgment made privacy a fundamental right, yet today there’s no clear cop on the beat stopping this mass extraction.
So here we are: celebrating “free” AI while quietly becoming the 21st-century equivalent of a colonial plantation. Only this time, the crop isn’t cotton or tea—it’s our thoughts, our languages, our creativity, our future jobs.No Indian company can compete with this model.
None of them can afford to give away a year of their flagship AI product to 360 million people just to harvest data. Only American giants—with their endless venture capital, cloud monopolies, and regulatory immunity—can play this game.
Enjoy your free Gemini and ChatGPT Pro while it lasts.Just know that every prompt you type is another drop of Indian intellectual oil being pumped out, refined abroad, and used to build machines that will one day replace Indian coders, teachers, lawyers, and artists.This isn’t digital inclusion.
This is the most sophisticated data colonialism the world has ever seen—and we’re paying for it with our own future.
Naorem Mohen is the Editor of Signpost News. Explore his views and opinion on X: @laimacha.
Naorem Mohen
View More PostsNaorem Mohen is the Editor of Signpost News. Explore his views and opinion on X: @laimacha.
