Hostinger CEO urges Indian MSMEs to own data and ready stores for AI agents
At YourStory’s MSME Sparks 2026 in Bengaluru, Hostinger CEO Giedrius Zakaitis advised small businesses to build owned digital storefronts, use AI to launch faster and activate customer behaviour data through email and WhatsApp.
What happened
Hostinger CEO Giedrius Zakaitis urged Indian MSMEs to own their digital platforms and customer data, launch faster using AI tools, and use behavioural data for
Key facts
- A website/store can be launched in a minute for a few hundred rupees
- Hostinger revenue tripled over the last four years
- Small product improvements can benefit 1,000 other customers
Why this matters
Commerce, payments and messaging platforms should assess partnerships with hosting and storefront providers that can embed agent-ready checkout and first-party data tools for MSMEs.
What to watch
- Hostinger or competitors launching India-specific AI commerce bundles with UPI, GST, Indian logistics and WhatsApp integrations.
- Evidence of AI agents from major platforms gaining permission to complete product search, checkout or post-purchase service transactions.
- Growth in MSME adoption of product feeds, inventory APIs, schema markup and headless or API-enabled checkout.
- New WhatsApp Business pricing, policy changes or restrictions affecting promotional messaging and customer-data use.
- DPDP rules, enforcement guidance or consent requirements that materially alter small-business CRM practices.
- Marketplace policy changes around seller-owned customer relationships, packaging inserts, direct marketing or external links.
- Merchant metrics showing lower customer-acquisition costs or higher repeat rates from owned storefront and lifecycle marketing adoption.
- Website builders will bundle AI site generation with product catalog management, payment links, WhatsApp automation, CRM and basic analytics rather than selling domains and hosting alone.
- Commerce platforms will prioritize machine-readable product data, real-time inventory sync, structured returns policies and API-accessible checkout to make stores legible to AI agents.
- Payment firms and logistics providers will market agent-compatible checkout, fraud controls, address validation and post-purchase tracking integrations to small merchants.
- MSME-focused agencies and SaaS resellers will emerge as implementation partners, packaging storefront migration, catalog digitization and WhatsApp/email lifecycle campaigns.
- Marketplaces may respond by strengthening seller CRM, branded storefront and repeat-customer tools while limiting merchants' ability to move buyers off-platform.
- Demand for consent capture, customer-data governance and DPDP-ready marketing workflows will rise as first-party data becomes a stated MSME growth asset.