The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) is piloting an agentic AI framework for UPI, marking the next phase of what it calls "intelligent commerce".
The payments body showcased a live demo of the offering at the Global Fintech Fest 2025 today.
The on-stage presentation featured Gemini, BigBasket, Google Pay, and Razorpay as partners. It opened with a simple use case - an AI assistant helping a user recreate a food recipe.
The assistant, powered by Gemini, scaled the recipe for 10 people, ordered the ingredients via BigBasket, and completed the payment using an HDFC Bank credit card through Google Pay. Razorpay acted as the payment service provider, while Axis Bank was the acquiring partner.
"This is UPI moving from being a transactional layer to becoming an intelligent commerce layer," said Kunal Kalawatia, NPCI's product and marketing chief, during the demonstration.
Infosys cofounder and NPCI advisor Nandan Nilekani, who was also present on the stage, said that the convergence of AI and digital payments will be the key to India's next phase of fintech innovation.
The demo showed how user-authorised AI chatbots and agents could discover, decide, and complete payments through UPI using contextual triggers, voice or text commands, and user-defined routines.
The system processed the order in real time without redirects or manual steps, integrating discovery, decision, and transaction in one seamless flow.
The NPCI said the concept reflects a future where payments are embedded into AI-driven interactions rather than handled as separate tasks. The aim is to position UPI as the underlying protocol for intelligent commerce, enabling users to move from intent to action within a single AI conversation.
Meanwhile, the payments body also rolled out a slew of other innovations on the second day of GFF 2025. It launched UPI Reserve Pay to let a user "lock" a portion of their credit card limit or approved credit line for future use on UPI, an AI-powered support system to streamline complaint resolution and a new offering called Banking Connect.
Another major takeaway of the glitzy event was the launch of new feature, which will allow Internet of Things (IoT) devices like smartwatches, refrigerators, and connected cars to make autonomous UPI payments without a user's phone.