Google Pay launches Gemini-powered UPI spending assistant and opens SBI Card sign-ups

Google Pay has launched Ask Google Pay in India, an opt-in Gemini-powered chatbot that analyses UPI transactions in 10 Indian languages and offers credit guidance. The platform has also opened sign-ups for its RuPay-based Google Pay Flex SBI Card, extending its in-app credit push.

— Source publishedWed, 29 Jul, 2026, 19:46 IST·First seen Wed, 29 Jul, 2026, 19:52 IST·Source NDTV Profit

What happened

Google Pay launched Ask Google Pay in India, an opt-in Gemini-powered chatbot that analyses UPI spending and offers credit guidance. It also opened sign-ups for

Key facts

  • 10 Indian languages
  • second Google Pay credit-card partnership in India

Why this matters

The SBI partnership signals Google Pay’s strategy to assemble a multi-issuer credit ecosystem around UPI data and in-app distribution, creating partnership opportunities for banks, insurers and wealth providers.

What to watch

  • Ask Google Pay opt-in rate, repeat usage and the share of users acting on recommendations.
  • Flex SBI Card approval rates, activation rates, credit limits, early delinquency and spend per active card.
  • Whether Google Pay permits cross-bank account aggregation or remains limited to on-platform UPI history.
  • RBI or DPDP-related guidance on AI-generated financial recommendations, consent withdrawal and transaction-data retention.
  • New card, loan or account-aggregator partnerships from Google Pay, PhonePe, Paytm and BHIM.
  • Merchant-funded offer growth and evidence that card-linked UPI transactions increase within Google Pay.
  • Expand Ask Google Pay from spend summaries into bill prediction, subscription alerts, savings goals, tax categorization and merchant-level dispute assistance.
  • Use opted-in UPI behavioral signals to pre-qualify users for Flex SBI Card, Axis Card, personal loans and secured-credit products.
  • Add issuer partners and tiered RuPay card variants to widen approval coverage across prime, emerging-prime and thin-file consumers.
  • Bundle card rewards with UPI merchant offers to shift high-frequency payment users toward Google Pay-linked credit products.
  • Competitors launch multilingual AI money assistants and accelerate bank-card, credit-line and co-lending partnerships.