Digital payments pioneer Paytm shares rose over 4% on September 9 after a report said the company is expanding to a new business, jumping on the agentic AI bandwagon to accelerate a rebound in revenue growth.
The company will start selling artificial intelligence agents to enterprise customers, betting on rising demand for such bots that can automatically handle a variety of workloads and tasks with minimal supervision, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg. That marks a major departure from its core business of handling digital payments for consumers and businesses, and offering a slate of related services like loans and investing.
The new Paytm Intelligence, or Pi, service can deploy AI agents across functions such as sales, customer service and operations, the people said, asking not to be named as the information is private. Pi will initially target banks, smaller lenders, insurers and other financial institutions in India and the United Arab Emirates, the people said.
Paytm has overcome regulatory hurdles that threatened its business model two years ago, giving it confidence to attempt a pivot into becoming an AI provider. The company has returned to revenue growth and reached profitability — yet tough competition in digital payments has left it with limited expansion possibilities in that market.
At 11:55 am on September 9, Paytm shares were trading 4.2% higher at Rs 1,739.2 apiece.