Perplexity’s rug pull in India, AI PCs are the new Chromebooks, Deepseek isn’t an AI company

Welcome back to Zero Shot, where Brady, Praveen, and Rohin discuss and analyse major developments related to artificial intelligence every week.Praveen kicks off this episode with a look at Perplexity’s changes to its Pro plan’s free trial. Perplexity has changed its terms and conditions, and now requires users who signed up for a 12-month free subscription to put a credit card on file. The hosts of Zero Shot discuss why this is happening now.Then, Rohin tells everyone about AI PCs, the spiritual successors to Chromebooks. If you’re already using cloud services every day, would you replace every function on your personal computer with AI applications? AI is truly eating everything, now including hardware—at least in the rhetoric.Finally, Brady highlights that it’s been one year since the “Deepseek Moment”. The company dispelled the notion that Silicon Valley is charting the only way forward for creating better large language models. But Deepseek isn’t an AI company in the conventional sense. It works like a research lab funded by hedge fund profits, which shapes its R&D culture and exemplifies a different vision for bringing about AGI.Zeus, the mascot of Zero Shot, was generated using AI. Everything else is made by humans, just like all articles, columns, newsletters, and other podcasts created by The Ken.Share your comments, critiques and suggestions with us at [email protected]. Or write in just to say hi. We respond to everyone who contacts us.Additional ReadingAirtel’s free Perplexity Pro paused for Indians with no credit card, angering usershttps://www.msn.com/en-in/money/news/airtel-s-free-perplexity-pro-paused-for-indians-with-no-credit-card-angering-users/ar-AA1U2ig0Jeff Bezos said the quiet part out loud — hopes that you'll give up your PC to rent one from the cloudhttps://www.windowscentral.com/artificial-intelligence/jeff-bezos-says-the-quiet-part-out-loud-bezos-envisions-that-youll-give-up-your-pc-for-an-ai-cloud-versionThe numbers behind OpenAI, Gemini, and Perplexity’s deals with Phonepe, Jio, and Airtelhttps://the-ken.com/newsletters/two-by-two/the-numbers-behind-openai-and-perplexitys-deals-with-jio-and-airtel/CES 2026 – “The Future Is Here” and “Innovators Show Up”https://hardcoresoftware.learningbyshipping.com/p/237-ces-2026-the-future-is-here-and‘The enshittification of computer repair is happening.’https://infosec.exchange/@sawaba/115924627821844963DeepSeek founder Liang’s funds surge 57% as China quants boomhttps://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-12/deepseek-founder-liang-s-funds-surge-57-as-china-quants-boomNo business model: DeepSeek's enduring advantagehttps://interconnected.blog/no-business-model-deepseeks-enduring-advantage/Lossfunkhttps://lossfunk.com/Sarvam AI’s Rs 10,000 crore pivothttps://the-ken.com/columns/zero-shot/sarvam-ais-rs-10000-crore-pivot/