“Going forward, what I’m seeing is there is a tremendous amount of AI stack that we’re going to see. So foundationally inference and then use cases will show up. Obviously, the bottom line of AI’s impact is that we are able to save costs and that is what we’re seeing, continuously we’ll see. But I’m super excited that what is in front of us we have in the form of AI, where we will be able to expand in the infrastructure and the use cases in a very dramatic different way. And this is my way of intending to tell what Paytm’s future is headed towards. This will be the future that we will expand on. What we have built in financial services is showing that we can make it replicable globally. So product and technology that we have built in India, they can easily be replicated globally,” Sharma said.
He further highlighted that the “future growth of Paytm in revenue and bottom line is going to come from India’s expansion of financial services, replication of this product technology [financial services business stack] elsewhere and AI stack, right from infrastructure to the use-case.”
“AI is a revenue line item,” Sharma said during the Q2 FY26 earnings call. “AI brings newer service, newer business, phenomenally more number of things that we can do.”
Also Read: What They Said: Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas of IMF on AI
Building an “AI Commerce Cloud”
He added that the company is already piloting AI-led subscription services for merchants, which will later expand into an “AI commerce cloud” line item in Paytm’s financial reporting.
“Our merchant base will get re-cross-sell for AI-led infrastructure, product agents, et cetera, et cetera. And right now we are running some pilots, et cetera, on us as internal customers. And I’m very excited that we do believe that one year forward, they should be in a commerce cloud line item. The cloud element could be the AI element that will start to go back once again. So it is a revenue line item. I am personally completely about revenue line items and creating products and services which otherwise couldn’t have been created.
AI Agents for Small Businesses
Sharma said Paytm is developing AI-driven agents for merchants, describing them as digital assistants that can act as a “Chief Operating Officer, Chief Finance Officer, or Chief Marketing Officer” for small businesses.
When asked about Paytm’s AI opportunity and strategy, Sharma said: “First of all, AI, what do you mean by AI here? Is it a buzzword or what is the revenue line item that we could do? So I’m gonna take two product line items as an example. One is where the small shop takes an agent which is served using our sound AI sound box or various other AI devices that we could launch. And these agents are made for small merchants. Typically, large companies get third party companies like Snowflake or let’s say Accenture. I am sure there will be Infosys or Wipro also in that category that will implement AI for businesses where they will bring all enterprise data and make this interface available for large business.
Now, we are going to do it for small businesses in the country and elsewhere over the period as I’ve said. The idea is that a small business can have a chief operating officer, chief finance officer, chief marketing officer practically there in the shop in an AI component that we are talking about. Obviously, I’m not gonna judge their devices, smartphones, whether they can run models, et cetera or not. So that is why we are building these devices which are specifically made and manufactured by ourselves. Now, these elements of AI effectively, practically for you, are agents for small business.”
Also Read: What They Said: Gopal Vittal of Bharti Airtel on AI
Monetize AI Inference for Small Businesses
According to Sharma, Paytm will monetize AI inference for small businesses. “Paytm is selling agents for small business and charging subscription and inference fees once the subscription usage grows ahead of it. For example, as you know, you’re going to talk about how do I grow my revenue? Where is my revenue compared to somebody else nearby? And where is my revenue showing up versus last month? And all these kinds of questions, we believe that there is a fair amount of usage that will show up in the subscription. And if you want to use even for the next set of things, for example, like give me an ad, give me a marketing plan, run my ad on social media, everything can be done on this. And all those kinds of elements will mean that you’re using more inference, we will price inference.”
Paytm Soundbox: From Payments to AI Assistant
He also hinted at upcoming AI-powered hardware products, saying that the Paytm Soundbox will evolve significantly. “Soundbox will sound like a feature phone some days later. I mean, this will be like a smartphone app as well. So there it is, this is an agent revenue, and there’s an upside of revenue.,” Sharma said, describing future versions as capable of multilingual translation and customer interaction.
“So you have a shop where you speak, let’s say Hindi. I speak in Hindi. And the buyer is in, let’s say, English, or let’s say, Spanish, or Mexican, whatever language. I’m not saying that we will only get English speaking tourists in India. Now the shopkeeper said in Hindi, this is for Rs 45,000, it’s absolutely the best, but this is our last price I can do, and the soundbox was able to translate it. Now, you have an assistant who can speak the language of your customer. I mean, you know how phenomenal it is? I’m so elated that the use-cases and features that we are seeing are way ahead of just speaking a soundbox.”
Also Read: What They Said: Thomas Kurian of Google Cloud on AI
Capital Allocation in AI
On potential capital investments into AI infrastructure, Sharma clarified: “Whenever we are going to do any capital investment, capital investment is an investment that goes beyond USD 20-50 million onwards, we will be very much sizing it up, we will be very much proactively announcing it in advance, et cetera. So right now, what you are hearing, there is no material investment plan here.”
Not Cheap Third-World Country Technology
He concluded, “We went to Japan, we made money, we made products. And my personal ambition is an editorial choice award that you have a product that can work in a developed economy. I never want to be identified as cheap third-world country technology. We are the first-world in the technology world.”
This is a developing story, and more quotes and insights from Vijay Shekhar Sharma will be added as they become available.
Some people read for free. A few choose to support. If you found TelecomTalk useful, you can help keep us running.
Support Telecomtalk
