iWorld
360 million Airtel customers get free access to Adobe Express Premium
NEW DELHI: Bharti Airtel is sweetening the telecom bundle, handing its entire customer base free access to Adobe Express Premium as telcos race to add value beyond data and voice.
Under the partnership, all 360 million Airtel customers across mobile, Wi-Fi and DTH will get Adobe Express Premium worth Rs 4,000 free for one year. The subscription can be activated through the Airtel Thanks app, with no credit card required, lowering the barrier for mass adoption.
The move puts professional-grade creative tools into the hands of users regardless of design experience, allowing them to create resumes, posters, videos and social media content using Adobe’s AI-powered features.
“This partnership is about more than technology. It is about empowering millions of Indians with cutting-edge AI tools to create and innovate,” said Siddharth Sharma, ceo, connected homes and director, marketing at Bharti Airtel. “From a student crafting their first resume to a small business owner designing a poster or a creator editing videos for followers, we want to empower every Airtel customer with the tools for self-expression. With Adobe Express, world-class creative tools are no longer a luxury. They are a reality for every Indian.”
Adobe Express Premium offers access to thousands of professional templates, including designs tailored for Indian festivals, weddings and local businesses. The subscription also includes AI features such as instant background removal, custom image generation, one-tap video editing, premium Adobe Stock assets, more than 30,000 professional fonts, 100GB of cloud storage, auto captions, instant resize and watermark-free exports, with seamless syncing across devices.
“We are committed to empowering everyone to create and stand out with Adobe Express, the quick and easy create-anything app,” said David Wadhwani, president, digital media at Adobe. “We are excited to partner with Airtel to bring Adobe Express Premium to millions of people across India for free, accelerating the growth of India’s vibrant creator economy and enabling people to easily produce standout content, whether boosting their careers, growing their businesses or promoting their passions.”
The app is available in English, Hindi, Tamil and Bengali, allowing users to create content in their preferred language. From festival greetings and wedding invitations to promotional material for local shops or WhatsApp status updates, the platform is designed to make creative expression widely accessible.
The partnership also gives Airtel customers access to Adobe Express’s generative AI capabilities, enabling faster creation and higher-quality output across formats.
As competition tightens, Airtel’s Adobe tie-up underlines a broader shift. Indian telcos are no longer just selling connectivity but stacking AI tools, cloud services and content to keep customers locked in.
iWorld
X launches XChat messaging app on iOS with calls and encryption
Standalone app marks shift from “everything app” vision, adds E2E messaging.
MUMBAI: From one big app to many small chats, X seems to be splitting its ambitions. X has rolled out its standalone messaging app, XChat, to iOS users, opening up a new front in its evolving product strategy. The app allows users to connect with existing X contacts through private and group messages, file sharing, as well as audio and video calls. The launch follows a limited beta phase, where the platform tested the product with a smaller user base to refine the experience. Now available publicly, XChat marks a notable pivot from earlier ambitions championed by Elon Musk to turn X into a single “everything app” combining messaging, payments, commerce and more.
Instead, the company under xAI ownership and backed by SpaceX appears to be building a suite of standalone applications, each targeting specific use cases while expanding its broader ecosystem.
At launch, XChat includes end-to-end encrypted messaging, PIN-based access, disappearing messages, and features such as message editing, deletion for all participants, and screenshot blocking. The company has also said the app is free from advertisements and tracking mechanisms, positioning it as a privacy-first alternative in a crowded messaging space.
However, security claims around the platform are likely to face scrutiny. Earlier iterations of XChat drew criticism from experts who argued it fell short of established encrypted platforms like Signal. With the wider rollout, the app is expected to undergo fresh evaluation to assess whether those concerns have been addressed.
Beyond messaging, XChat will also house X’s Communities feature, which is being discontinued on the main platform due to low usage and spam concerns. Migrating these users could provide an early boost to adoption, effectively turning XChat into both a communication and community hub.
The move underscores a broader recalibration at X less about cramming everything into one app, and more about spreading bets across multiple touchpoints, one message at a time.
