Google's Gemini application has experienced remarkable growth, particularly in India, reaching over 450 million monthly active users. This surge in popularity is attributed to several strategic initiatives and the increasing adoption of AI across various sectors in the country. Shekar Khosla, Vice President - Marketing & Site Lead at Google India, shared this milestone in a LinkedIn post, noting a daily usage increase of more than 50% compared to the previous quarter.
One of the key drivers behind Gemini's soaring user base is Google's focus on making AI accessible to a wider audience in India. In June 2025, the tech giant launched the Gemini app in India, offering support for nine Indian languages: Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu. This localization strategy has significantly contributed to the app's adoption by breaking down language barriers and catering to the diverse linguistic landscape of the country.
Furthermore, Google is providing free access to its premium Google AI Pro plan, which normally costs ₹19,500 annually, to Indian college students aged 18 and above until September 15, 2025. This initiative aims to empower students with advanced AI tools for education, research, and creative projects. The AI Pro plan includes access to Gemini 2.5 Pro, Deep Research, and the AI video generator, Veo 3, enhancing its appeal among the student community.
Google has also unveiled several initiatives to propel India's AI capabilities and empower developers. At Google I/O Connect India 2025 in Bengaluru, the company announced the localization of onshore processing for Gemini 2.5 Flash, promising faster, low-latency AI performance for Indian developers, especially in regulated sectors like healthcare, finance, and governance. This move underscores Google's commitment to supporting the growth of AI innovation within India.
In line with the "Make-in-India" initiative, Google is collaborating with three India AI Mission startups—Sarvam, Soket AI, and Gnani—to develop AI models based on Gemma. Additionally, Google is partnering with IIT Bombay's BharatGen to advance automatic speech recognition (ASR) and text-to-speech (TTS) models for Indic languages.
The AI market in India is experiencing rapid expansion, projected to reach $8 billion by 2025 with a 40% CAGR from 2020. This growth is fueled by increasing investments in AI research and development, the government's push for digitalization, and the rise of data analytics. India ranks among the top countries globally in terms of AI investments and talent pool. The government's IndiaAI initiative, with a corpus of over Rs 10,000 crore, aims to establish national AI compute infrastructure and provide access to over 10,000 GPUs for AI model training and research.
While Gemini's user base is rapidly growing, it still faces competition from other AI chatbots like ChatGPT. However, Gemini's integration across Google's ecosystem, including Search and Android, provides a significant advantage in reaching a broader audience. Moreover, Google is continuously adding new features and capabilities to Gemini, such as the ability to generate crochet-style visuals from text prompts and a photo-to-video tool powered by Veo 2.
In conclusion, Google Gemini's impressive growth in India, reflected in its 450 million+ monthly active users, is a testament to the company's strategic focus on localization, accessibility, and collaboration. By offering free AI Pro access to students, supporting Indian languages, and investing in local AI development, Google is well-positioned to capitalize on the booming AI market in India and empower the country's digital future.
