India’s AI-Driven Shopping Experience: A New Era in Digital Commerce

India is set to transform its digital commerce landscape by launching a pilot program that enables consumers to shop and pay through AI chatbots. This initiative, spearheaded by OpenAI’s ChatGPT, in partnership with the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) and fintech company Razorpay, marks a significant advancement in integrating AI into everyday transactions.

The pilot leverages NPCI’s new protocol, allowing users to allocate funds for future payments to specific merchants, simplifying the payment process within ChatGPT. This eliminates the need to switch between apps, offering a streamlined shopping experience.

Initial partnerships with BigBasket and Vi allow customers to purchase groceries and mobile recharge plans directly through these AI chatbots. Financial institutions like Axis Bank and Airtel Payments Bank support the banking integration, ensuring secure transactions.

This move is part of a broader strategy to tap into India’s burgeoning digital economy, enhancing user engagement and potentially increasing the adoption of the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), which already handles over 20 billion transactions monthly.

Future developments include integrations with Google’s Gemini and Anthropic’s Claude, providing users with diverse AI-driven shopping options. While there is no revenue-sharing model currently, the initiative is expected to boost user retention for AI companies.

The potential of AI-driven shopping agents is immense, as demonstrated by startups like Cashfree Payments, which is enabling merchant payments through their Agentic Payments MCP. As India continues to innovate, the adoption of AI in commerce is poised to grow, reshaping consumer interaction with digital markets.