Can Razorpay Turn ChatGPT Into India’s Next Commerce Channel?

ChatGPT is evolving beyond its role as a search assistant for ecommerce, transforming into a new channel for product discovery and shopping for many brands and marketplaces. E-commerce platform Nykaa, for instance, has emerged as the leading beauty brand on ChatGPT and Gemini through its "Answer Engine Optimization" (AEO) approach.

This shift in consumer behavior has prompted merchants to seek ways to integrate their shopping experiences within AI platforms. In India, Razorpay is at the forefront of this AI commerce revolution, working on infrastructure to enable merchants to build ChatGPT-native storefronts and complete purchases within the chat interface.

CEO Harshil Mathur envisions Razorpay's role extending beyond mere payments to helping merchants integrate product catalogues and storefronts into AI platforms, leveraging NPCI's UPI Circle and UPI Reserve Pay for seamless checkout experiences. Razorpay is currently collaborating with around 50 brands and several e-commerce marketplaces experimenting with agentic commerce, with skincare brand Innovist being one of the first to go live with its ChatGPT commerce stack.

While competitor Cashfree has also ventured into AI-native commerce with its "Cashfree Here" extension for platforms like ChatGPT and Claude, Razorpay differentiates itself by focusing on merchant relationships and ensuring users maintain control over their transactions. The company's underlying payment architecture is designed to keep payment credentials and sensitive data within the user's UPI account, with authorisation handled through NPCI's infrastructure.

By offering exclusive merchant partnerships and streamlined integration processes, Razorpay aims to become the go-to platform for AI commerce in India.