Ordering groceries, booking tickets, or paying bills could soon become as simple as chatting. Razorpay, in collaboration with the National Payments Corporation of India and OpenAI, has launched Agentic Payments, a pilot initiative that allows users to make UPI payments directly within AI environments such as ChatGPT. This marks a new phase in India’s digital payments journey, merging conversational AI with real-time payment systems to create seamless, intuitive commerce experiences.

Breakdown:

Context
Under the pilot, ChatGPT users can ask the AI to perform tasks such as ordering ingredients for a meal from BigBasket. The AI browses catalogues, shows product options, and completes purchases through Razorpay’s payment stack—all within the chat interface. The system is powered by Razorpay’s banking partners, Axis Bank and Airtel Payments Bank, and uses UPI features such as UPI Circle, extended authorisation, and UPI Reserve Pay. BigBasket, a Tata enterprise, is the first participating merchant.

Angles
Razorpay’s co-founder and CEO Harshil Mathur described Agentic Payments as a shift from AI as a discovery tool to AI as a full-fledged shopping assistant capable of completing the entire buying journey. NPCI’s Executive Director Sohini Rajola called it a significant step toward making transactions more intelligent and inclusive, while OpenAI’s Oliver Jay highlighted how AI can now move from helping users find products to helping them buy them. The pilot positions India at the forefront of integrating AI with mainstream financial infrastructure.

What’s Next
If successful, Agentic Payments could extend beyond e-commerce to sectors such as travel, entertainment, and education. User-authorised AI agents might eventually handle routine transactions, subscription renewals, and bill payments. NPCI and Razorpay will evaluate performance, security, and adoption metrics before expanding the program across more merchants and user categories.

Why this matters:

Agentic Payments could redefine how consumers interact with businesses online. By integrating payments into natural language interfaces, India is moving toward a model where AI anticipates user intent, simplifies decisions, and executes actions securely. This could reshape digital commerce for hundreds of millions of UPI users and strengthen India’s leadership in payment innovation.

The Big Picture:

India’s digital payments revolution has been built on UPI’s simplicity and reach. The next phase adds intelligence and context. Combining AI with UPI infrastructure could make India the global testbed for conversational commerce, setting the benchmark for intuitive, secure, and personalised digital transactions.

The Crunch:

The evolution of payments is no longer about speed alone. It is about anticipation, intelligence, and trust. When AI becomes the interface and UPI the engine, the entire act of paying transforms into an experience of effortless decision-making.