Google's business model for India is going through a major shift—from mainly ad-based revenue to other sources, such as YouTube and Google One subscriptions, in addition to data storage tariffs, a Google executive said.
“We are looking at scaling Pixel, too,” said Preeti Lobana, VP and Country Manager at Google India, to Moneycontrol.
This comes amid Google rolling out Workspace Studio, an agentic AI hub within Google Workspace based on the latest Gemini 3, for the general public.
According to Lobana, this shift is a part of a larger global shift in Google's revenue streams, which is also taking place in India despite its tariff tensions with the US.
“Broad-basing revenue beyond ads—it is happening ... which you can see in our earnings call. The same trend is playing out in India”.
In that regard, she reiterated that India was "deeply critical" for Google, and expressed support for India's Viksit Bharat and India AI goals.
“We've been in India for 20-plus years, standing with India, growing with India in our digital evolution ... to empowering the businesses with the power of Google Ads, so to say. And Google Cloud now," Lobana said.
The shift in Google’s global revenue model is also being reflected in India. "If you look at our earnings call, which is very public, what you will see globally is also true for India,” said Lobana.
The Google India executive, who also has decades of experience working in banks such as NatWest Group, American Express, and Standard Chartered Bank, also highlighted the tech giant's major investments into India.
Lobana explained that the $15 million investment into an upcoming "gigawatt-scale" data centre in Visakhapatnam follows the inauguration of Ananta (its largest-ever office in India) in Bengaluru, as well as India's first Google Safety Engineering Centre in Hyderabad.
Lobana also spoke of two major initiatives by Google as a part of its India AI push—the Startup School (Nov 27-Dec 7), which solicits innovative ideas developed using its AI toolkit over a two-week period; and the AI Futures Fund, which aims to support pre-seed AI startups in India.
"For Sundar Pichai and Google and for us, we are here with India as we look to grow the digital economy and look to solve systemic challenges."