Key Highlights:
- OpenAI partners with Pine Labs to embed AI reasoning into payments and commerce workflows.
- Focus on automating settlement, reconciliation, and invoicing in B2B payments.
- Partnership strengthens OpenAI’s enterprise and infrastructure push in India.
- Rollout prioritizes AI-assisted commerce, with agent-led payments tested overseas.
OpenAI has partnered with Pine Labs to integrate AI-driven reasoning into the fintech firm’s payments stack. The collaboration aims to automate settlement, reconciliation, and invoicing workflows, as India positions itself as a global hub for applied artificial intelligence.
The partnership will see Pine Labs embed OpenAI’s APIs into its payments and commerce infrastructure. The goal is to reduce manual effort, speed up processing, and enable AI-assisted commerce at scale, according to the companies.
Why is OpenAI focusing on India now?
The deal highlights OpenAI’s expanding push beyond consumer tools like ChatGPT into enterprise and infrastructure use cases. India is one of OpenAI’s fastest-growing markets, driven by a large developer base and growing demand for applied AI.
Earlier this week, OpenAI partnered with Indian engineering, medical, and design institutions to introduce AI tools in higher education. The Pine Labs deal adds fintech and commerce to that strategy, placing OpenAI deeper into regulated, high-volume workflows.
How will AI change Pine Labs’ payments workflows?
Pine Labs is already using AI internally to automate parts of its settlement and reconciliation process. According to CEO B Amrish Rau, tasks that once took hours and required dozens of employees now run in minutes through AI-driven systems.
With OpenAI’s models, Pine Labs plans to extend these efficiencies to merchants and corporate clients. Initial use cases will focus on B2B workflows such as invoice processing, settlement, and payments orchestration, where repetitive tasks follow clear rules.
Will AI agents handle payments in India?
Rau said adoption will differ by market. Overseas regions with more flexible regulations may see faster rollout of autonomous, agent-led payment workflows. India, by contrast, will likely move gradually, with AI assisting commerce rather than initiating payments independently.
Pine Labs is already prototyping agent-driven payments in parts of the Middle East and Southeast Asia. In India, regulatory controls mean human authorization will remain central, even as AI handles more backend processes.
What does each company gain from the deal?
For Pine Labs, the partnership supports its shift from a payments processor to a broader commerce platform. The company works with over 980,000 merchants and operates in 20 countries, giving OpenAI exposure across Indian and global markets.
The arrangement is non-exclusive and does not include revenue sharing. Rau compared it to OpenAI’s U.S. partnership with Stripe, noting Pine Labs remains open to other AI providers.
As OpenAI expands its enterprise footprint, this partnership places its technology at the heart of India’s payments infrastructure, reinforcing its role in the next phase of AI-led commerce.
