India’s National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), in collaboration with fintech company Razorpay and OpenAI, has unveiled a pioneering pilot project that allows users to initiate UPI payments directly via ChatGPT. Announced on October 9, this marks the first-ever fusion of India’s instant payment infrastructure with conversational AI, enabling seamless transactions within the chatbot interface—eliminating the need to toggle between multiple apps
Transforming Shopping with ChatGPT and UPI
India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI), which handles over 20 billion transactions each month, is now powering a new era of “Agentic Payments” through a groundbreaking pilot program. This initiative allows users to interact with ChatGPT to place orders—such as requesting ingredients for “Chicken tikka masala for 4 people”—and have the AI assistant browse merchant catalogs, suggest products, confirm choices, and finalize payments using Razorpay’s infrastructure.
BigBasket, owned by the Tata Group, is one of the first e-commerce platforms to adopt this AI-enabled payment system. Axis Bank and Airtel Payments Bank are participating as banking partners in the pilot. The service builds on advanced UPI features like UPI Circle and UPI Reserve Pay, offering secure, real-time transactions along with conveniences such as order tracking and instant cancellations.
Strategic Momentum at Global Fintech Fest 2025
The launch coincides with the Global Fintech Fest 2025 in Mumbai, where NPCI introduced a suite of AI-driven innovations. The timing aligns with ChatGPT’s surge to 800 million weekly active users worldwide, positioning India as its second-largest user base. This pilot also follows a previous setback in August, when OpenAI’s initial attempt to integrate Stripe’s UPI system during ChatGPT’s India rollout failed, preventing users from completing transactions.
Harshil Mathur, CEO of Razorpay, described the initiative as a leap forward—elevating AI assistants from basic search tools to intelligent shopping agents capable of guiding users through product selection and payment. Oliver Jay, OpenAI’s Managing Director of International Strategy, highlighted the partnership’s potential to merge cutting-edge AI with UPI, one of the most trusted real-time payment systems globally, ushering in a new era of frictionless and secure digital commerce.
The pilot is designed to evaluate how AI agents can independently execute transactions while preserving user autonomy and safety, with future plans to expand across various sectors of online retail if the trial proves successful.
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