New Delhi: In a move that could redefine the architecture of digital payments in India, Pine Labs on Thursday announced a collaboration with OpenAI to embed advanced AI models into its core merchant infrastructure, signalling a shift from deterministic fintech systems to autonomous, reasoning-led commerce.
The company informed stock exchanges that it will integrate OpenAI’s APIs into its AI-native stack to engineer what it terms “Agentic Commerce” — a framework where financial systems not only process transactions but independently optimise the workflows behind them.
The development comes at a time when India’s digital payments ecosystem is witnessing unprecedented scale, with over 180 billion transactions annually and a fintech sector projected to touch $1.5 trillion in value in 2026.
For decades, fintech systems have largely relied on deterministic logic — predefined “if/then” rules to execute payments, lending checks, reconciliations and settlements. Pine Labs now aims to introduce a probabilistic reasoning layer that understands context, evaluates multiple outcomes and takes autonomous financial actions within pre-set compliance guardrails.
B Amrish Rau, CEO of Pine Labs, said the collaboration marks a transition from passive systems to an “active intelligence layer” for businesses. The infrastructure, he noted, will not merely participate in transactions but actively drive efficiency and growth.
OpenAI’s international leadership echoed the sentiment, describing the partnership as a step toward moving AI from information delivery to real-world financial action at scale.
The companies said the integration could unlock new use cases in conversational commerce, where users delegate complex financial tasks to intelligent agents within a single dialogue interface.
In practical terms, AI agents operating within Pine Labs’ secure architecture could autonomously manage recurring payments, optimise cross-border settlements, negotiate supplier terms or streamline working capital cycles — all under strict regulatory oversight.
The collaboration will leverage India’s sophisticated digital payment rails, including innovations such as UPI-based mandates and reserve payment systems, to ensure regulated financial finality while AI handles decision-making logic.
Pine Labs emphasised that all AI-driven workflows will operate within its enterprise-grade security and compliance framework, featuring encrypted environments, data isolation protocols and human-in-the-loop oversight where required.
Beyond internal deployment, the company plans to open this “agentic stack” to its broader developer ecosystem, enabling fintech innovators and third-party developers to build AI-native applications on top of Pine Labs’ infrastructure.
Operating across India and international markets including Malaysia, UAE, Singapore, Australia, the US and parts of Africa, Pine Labs has built a digital payments and issuing platform catering to merchants, brands, enterprises and financial institutions.
With this collaboration, the company is positioning itself at the intersection of AI and payments infrastructure, aiming to set a new standard for how businesses transact in an increasingly autonomous financial ecosystem