ChatGPT will soon pay for you! India’s AI payment pilot set to go live

The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has teamed up with Razorpay, a prominent fintech company backed by Microsoft’s OpenAI, to unveil an innovative pilot project. This initiative allows users to complete payments via ChatGPT, utilizing India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI). The announcement, made on Thursday, reveals the project's goal: to assess the viability of using artificial intelligence for real-time payments, the user base for the trial, operational locations, and the security of transactions facilitated through conversational AI. A key highlight of this pilot is the introduction of 'agentic AI', which enables technology to execute tasks with minimal human intervention. Users will have the ability to engage in conversations, browse products, and finalize purchases directly within the ChatGPT environment. Harshil Mathur, CEO of Razorpay, emphasized the significance of this advancement, stating, "Agentic payments are the next big step in AI innovation. We’re transforming AI assistants into comprehensive shopping companions." This service leverages UPI’s newly introduced Reserve Pay feature, which allows users to earmark funds for specific merchants prior to completing a transaction, thereby enhancing security. Axis Bank and Airtel Payments Bank are serving as the pilot's official banking partners, with Bigbasket, a Tata-owned e-commerce giant, among the first platforms to support shopping via ChatGPT. Oliver Jay, OpenAI’s Managing Director for International Strategy, expressed enthusiasm about collaborating with NPCI, highlighting the potential of merging AI with one of the world’s most reliable real-time payment systems. The pilot aims to explore how AI-enabled UPI payments can expand into various sectors while ensuring user security and control. In a competitive landscape, rival fintech firm Cashfree has also announced its own agentic AI payments solution, indicating that the integration of AI and payment technologies in India is rapidly accelerating. Additionally, there are rumors of an upcoming health-focused feature for ChatGPT. OpenAI has previously mentioned enhanced health-related functionalities in the anticipated GPT-5, which may soon be accessible through a new 'Clinician Mode'. Engineer Tibor Blaho from AI firm AIPRM recently uncovered code snippets on the ChatGPT web app that hint at this new feature. While specific details are scarce, 'Clinician Mode' could potentially offer users a dedicated platform for seeking preliminary medical advice before reaching out to healthcare professionals.