Sep 24: India’s digital commerce ecosystem is entering a new phase as Pine Labs and Google Cloud join hands to bring Gemini-powered artificial intelligence agents into merchant operations.
The collaboration aims to help Indian businesses use AI for tasks across commerce and payments, making it easier for merchants to connect with customers and participate in emerging agentic commerce. The initiative covers large enterprises as well as small and medium-sized businesses.
Agentic commerce allows AI systems to do more than simply provide information. AI agents can assist with activities such as discovering products, comparing choices and supporting transactions, potentially making digital commerce more automated for both businesses and consumers.
For Indian merchants, the shift could open new ways of reaching customers as shopping increasingly moves towards AI-powered platforms. Businesses that make their products, services and transaction systems accessible to AI tools could gain opportunities to participate in these emerging digital buying journeys.
The partnership will also support the development of AI-led tools for merchant and business operations. Pine Labs has been building its wider AI strategy around payments, merchant services, risk management, reconciliation and other financial workflows.
The development comes as Indian fintech companies increasingly explore agentic AI, moving beyond conventional chatbots towards systems that can assist with operational tasks and, within defined safeguards, take actions on behalf of businesses.
The bigger opportunity lies in bringing advanced AI capabilities to smaller businesses, which often have fewer technology resources than large enterprises. Wider access to AI-powered commerce tools could help these businesses improve customer engagement, automate routine processes and compete in an increasingly digital marketplace.
At the same time, the growth of agentic commerce is bringing greater attention to security, transparency and regulatory safeguards. As AI systems become capable of taking actions rather than simply generating responses, businesses will need strong controls around payments, customer data and transaction authorisation.
The Pine Labs-Google Cloud collaboration reflects a broader shift in India’s fintech industry, where AI is increasingly becoming part of the underlying infrastructure of commerce rather than just another customer-facing technology.
