India finally launched its artificial intelligence–powered assistant to all of its 500 million plus Unified Payments Interface (UPI) users, a significant majority of which already use competing apps like Google Pay and PhonePe. Launched by National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) as a part of the Digital India and IndiaAI Mission, this is first-of-its-kind integration of conversational AI with live transactions.
Overview of the Launch
NPCI, the organisation which has developed UPI Help, had launched it in October 2025 at the Global Fintech Festival where RBI Governor Sanjay Malhotra had said it would help build trust, speed and transparency in digital transactions. Aimed at addressing India’s 500 million UPI users, ‘UPI Help’ is conceived as an intelligent financial help provider which can assist with all types of queries related to UPI, take care of mandates by coming up with a view that how mandate data can be managed by the customer, real-time tracking of payments and ensuring the consumer protection.
Key Features of the AI Assistant
URI Help combines conversational AI with billing automation. Its core features include:
- AI-driven query resolution: Answers customer queries and resolves transaction related issues such as delays in processing/ failed transactions through a conversation-like chat.
- Transaction tracking: Allows customers to view payment status on-the-fly thus minimizes reliance on manual customer support.
- Efficient mandate management: Allows a unified view of all UPI Autopay mandates, users can pause / resume or revoke subscriptions with instructions as simple as “stop my scheduled payments” or “notify me before billing.”
- Auto Complaints filing: Mapping with banks for direct complaint lodging and instant relief on complaint UDIR mechanism under UPI sitiuation.
Integration Across Platforms
Initially available through member banks’ chat interfaces and the DigiSaathi chatbot, NPCI will extend UPI Help to third-party UPI apps through an API integration. The bot is backed by NPCI’s Small Language Model (SLM) and localised to cater to India’s multilingual user base under the Bhashini initiative and can be interacted with across 22 Indian languages.
Strategic Support and Partnerships
A wider FinTech AI Revolution in India is taking place, has been catalyzed under the auspices of the IndiaAI Mission and now deploys across over 38,000 GPUs across the country. Private fintech firms like BharatPe and Razorpay have also come out with AI assistants, BharatPeX and SmartPay respectively to include predictive intelligence spending, voice UPI payments and AI fraud detection.
Broader Impact on FinTech and Users
The integration of AI and UPI paves the road for self-learning financial systems, we can expect an end-point system which not only is able to prevent frauds in real-time, but also guide us towards personalized budgeting insights. It promises inclusiveness for millions of users in rural and semi-urban India, bridging the digital divide through financial literacy. UPI’s AI is changing digital finance “from infrastructure based growth to intelligence-based evolution”, it added.
Outlook
At over 20 billion UPI transactions a month in India, the launch of UPI Help elevates AI’s involvement into public payment infrastructure. There are plans to include voice-assistants such as BharatGen AI in future versions, which would further enhance conversational payment.
This puts India right at the forefront of AI-powered digital finance and transforms its giant UPI network into the world’s first national intelligent payment system.