Debugging the discount code

THE REAL TEST FOR AI BRANDS WILL BEGIN AFTER EARLY-BIRD PRICING PETERS OUT

- GEETIKA SRIVASTAVA

WHEN OPENAI DROPPED ChatGPT Go at ₹399 a month, Google countered with free AI Pro accounts for students. Elon Musk's xAI priced SuperGrok at ₹700, while Perplexity teamed up with Airtel to push free trials and student tie-ups. At first glance, the flurry of deals and discounts looks like a race to the bottom. While predatory pricing is a no-brainer way to increase sampling, the real question is "beyond the ticket, what?"

A quick clarification. It's not that experts suggest banning discounting forever; it's just that it might work better to take a leaf out of the playbook of brands like Netflix that have incentivized adoption by increasing the value the customer receives versus reducing the value of the offering.