In a move that signals the next evolution of conversational commerce, Razorpay and the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) have unveiled a strategic collaboration to integrate “Agentic Payments” into Anthropic’s AI assistant, Claude.

Announced at the India AI Impact Summit, the integration allows users to complete end-to-end transactions—ranging from food delivery to grocery hauls—directly within an AI chat interface. The platform is currently in a pilot phase with a select group of users.

Bridging the Gap Between Discovery and Purchase

While AI assistants have become adept at product discovery and comparison, the final hurdle has always been the hand-off to a third-party payment gateway. This partnership eliminates that friction by embedding Razorpay’s payment technology and NPCI’s UPI infrastructure directly into Claude’s conversational flow.

The system currently supports major Indian consumer platforms, including:

• Zomato (Food Delivery)

• Swiggy (Food and Quick-Commerce)

• Zepto (Instant Groceries)

The Tech Behind the Transaction: UPI Reserve Pay

The backbone of this “AI-native commerce” is UPI Reserve Pay. This feature addresses the primary pain point of automated commerce: security and authorization.

Instead of requiring a UPI PIN for every micro-transaction, the system allows users to set a pre-approved spending limit for specific merchants. Once this limit is established, the AI agent can execute multiple secure purchases on the user’s behalf.

To maintain consumer trust, the framework includes several safety layers:

• Single Confirmation: Orders are only placed after a final user nod within the chat.

• Flexible Limits: Users define exactly how much an agent can spend.

• Instant Revocation: Consent for the AI to handle funds can be withdrawn at any time.

• Real-Time Visibility: Every transaction is logged and visible to the user instantly.

Why India is the Testing Ground

Industry experts at the summit noted that India’s unique digital landscape—characterized by high-frequency UPI usage and a robust quick-commerce ecosystem—makes it a prime market for agent-led commerce.

“India is one of the few global markets where AI, payments, and consumer trust are aligned at population scale,” a spokesperson noted during the demonstration. By leveraging the existing familiarity with UPI, the partnership aims to move AI from a mere “information retriever” to an “active executor” of daily tasks.

By: Sandhya Bharti