ChatGPT meets UPI: India’s AI-powered payment revolution explained
When people ask me about India’s biggest achievement in the past decade, UPI always tops my list. Because, believe it or not, many of my friends abroad can’t stop talking about how seamless our payment system is, and honestly, it’s one of the few things that makes them miss India as well(liars, every one of them post fancy photos of them abroad almost everyday, I ain’t jealous).
While UPI has made digital payments incredibly simple, it still requires a human in the loop, after all, you’re the one entering the PIN at the end of a transaction.
But what if I told you that soon, you might not even need to do that, rather an AI assistant could handle your shopping and payments seamlessly, without any human intervention at all.
The Power Trio and the Agentic Leap
well , the real story behind this tech breakthrough is a landmark collaboration between three digital giants:
- NPCI (National Payments Corporation of India): The powerhouse that runs UPI, providing the secure, bank-grade infrastructure.
- Razorpay: India’s leading payments platform, building the crucial connecting layer to execute the transactions.
- OpenAI's ChatGPT: The AI engine providing the advanced conversational intelligence to understand and act on user commands.
In the final quarter of 2025, this trio announced the launch of ‘Agentic Payments’, a pilot initiative designed to integrate UPI directly into the conversational experience. The goal is to transform AI from a simple discovery tool (finding the best shoes) into a full-fledged, autonomous shopping agent (buying the shoes and paying for them).
The current phase involves initial partners like BigBasket and Vodafone Idea (Vi), allowing users to order groceries or recharge mobiles entirely within the chat interface.
Solving the Security Jugaad: UPI Circle and UPI Reserve Pay
We all know how dependent we have become on the UPI. With almost more than 85% of the digital transactions happening through UPI in the country, the biggest question on every Indian user's mind is, “Will my ChatGPT assistant randomly order a yacht? So, the answer is a firm ‘No.’ Since this is India, the land of innovation and security jugaad, NPCI built in crucial safeguards to give users complete control:
- UPI Circle: This acts as a 'trusted zone' authority. Users must explicitly pre-authorise their AI agent (like ChatGPT) to process payments, and this authorization is often limited to a whitelist of approved merchants (e.g., only BigBasket, not every other app). It ensures the AI only transacts with trusted partners.
- UPI Reserve Pay: This feature is the real game-changer for friction-free payments. Users can set a specific spending limit and reserve funds for their AI agent. The AI can then initiate and complete transactions instantly, without requiring a PIN or OTP for every single purchase, provided it stays within the pre-set limit. This removes the 'human in the loop' friction while still ensuring financial safety.
In essence, you are delegating a small, carefully monitored budget to your AI shopping assistant, you have full control to revoke the authorization or modify the limits instantly.
The Future of 'Invisible' Payments
The move to Agentic Payments isn't just about convenience; it’s about making commerce invisible. Imagine AI proactively reordering your monthly essentials before you even run out, or paying a utility bill just by confirming a single notification.
While this pilot promises a main character moment for Indian fintech on the global stage, it's natural to eye the future with caution.
Will this innovation be a giant leap for Digital India, or will it simply provide a brand-new playbook for increasing the scam count?
For now, the integration of NPCI’s strong security framework with Razorpay’s payment expertise suggests that the odds are heavily in favour of a secure and ridiculously convenient future. We’ll just have to wait for the public rollout to fully gauge the impact.
