From clicks to chat: OpenAI, UPI, and the AI takeover of e-commerce
For brands, this means the end of traditional visibility hacks. They can no longer game the system through ad spend or SEO tricks, according to experts.
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In a move that blurs the lines between conversational AI and e-commerce, OpenAI has launched a pilot that allows ChatGPT users in India to make purchases directly through UPI. The collaboration with NPCI, Razorpay, and Bigbasket marks the first retail integration, letting users search, order, and pay within a single chat.
With Axis Bank and Airtel Payments Bank on board as partners, the pilot could transform how Indians shop — turning conversation into a transaction. Bigbasket’s Preeti Jain said the company wants to “empower customers with a shopping journey that is truly seamless,” bringing discovery, payments, and delivery inside one interaction.
But while the tech headlines focus on convenience, the move could reshape the way brands are discovered, trusted, and experienced in India’s digital marketplace.
The new visibility game
Prabhakar Tiwari, Founder & CEO, Project Drone - WealthTech, believes the shift to conversational commerce will completely change how visibility and trust are built. “When AI becomes the interface, the algorithm decides who gets seen, but the consumer decides who gets trusted,” he said.
For brands, this means the end of traditional visibility hacks. “They can no longer game the system through ad spend or SEO tricks,” he explained. “They have to design for discoverability inside machine logic. The loudest brand will not win. The most useful one will.”
Tiwari points out that in a chat interface, tone and phrasing carry the emotional weight once held by visuals. “When your store becomes a sentence, your tone becomes your logo,” he said. To stand out, brands will need to embed wit, empathy, and purpose in every response. The next era of marketing, he added, “belongs to those who can build emotional recall in a text thread.”
According to him, the brands that treat AI as a collaborator rather than a threat will gain an edge. “AI ecosystems will be the new gatekeepers of attention,” he said. “The winners will be those who contribute knowledge that trains the AI itself. We are moving from SEO to AIO — AI Optimization — and those who master it early will write the rules of the next decade.”
The illusion of control
Saurabh Parmar, Fractional CMO, offers a more cautious perspective. As a CMO, he said he would “obviously try to game the system and frame narratives to suit the interface, like we did for search.” Yet he acknowledges that the success rate will be lower. “Marketers will still find hacks, but they’ll be rare. Unlike SEO, this system is less predictable, less human, and far harder to outsmart.”
The bigger concern, Parmar added, is how much control brands will lose. “Search and social let marketers influence the journey while keeping the destination in their hands,” he said. “Now both the journey and the destination belong to AI. That’s a fundamental power shift — one that could create an AI-controlled, narrative-less space where brands and consumers coexist inside the same loop.”
Conversation as connection
For Abhishek Chakraborty, Head of Brand, Digital, and PR Communications at Oriflame India, the change is less about loss of control and more about rethinking engagement. “ChatGPT could become a convenient hub for transactions,” he said, “but brand websites and apps will remain essential for storytelling and immersive experiences.”
He believes the future will be omnichannel rather than chat-only. “Chat-first commerce will complement other touchpoints, creating a seamless journey where conversation bridges convenience and connection.”
Chakraborty also thinks marketers will need to move away from one-way messaging. “Traditional campaigns were built for push. Conversational commerce is about context, guidance, and subtle nudges instead of hard selling,” he said. In this model, success will depend less on impressions and more on genuine, real-time interactions.
Done right, he believes chat-first commerce could make marketing more personal again. “By anticipating needs, offering guidance, and providing relevant suggestions, brands can act like trusted assistants,” he said. “Technology should amplify the human touch, not replace it.”
The ChatGPT-UPI integration is not just another feature rollout. It signals the beginning of an ecosystem where product discovery, transaction, and brand experience merge into one conversation. For marketers, the challenge will be to sound human in a machine-mediated world and to remain discoverable in systems that speak a different language.
