PayU launches Agent HQ to help Indian SMB merchants deploy AI commerce tools

The no-code AI agent store, embedded in PayU’s merchant dashboard, is designed to improve discovery across AI platforms, automate payment tasks such as refunds and chargebacks, and support conversational shopping assistants.

— Source publishedFri, 11 Sept, 2026, 10:35 IST·First seen Fri, 11 Sept, 2026, 10:37 IST·Source IndianWeb2

What happened

PayU launched Agent HQ, a no-code AI agent store for Indian SMB merchants to improve AI-platform discoverability, automate payment operations including refunds

Key facts

  • 4.5 lakh+ merchants
  • 700+ million shopper journeys
  • ₹7,800 billion transaction volume
  • about 50% of search traffic shifting to AI agents
  • up to 3x higher conversion for AI-referred shoppers
  • 100+ online payment methods

Why this matters

PayU’s move creates partnership opportunities with AI-agent, CRM, commerce-platform and merchant-discovery providers seeking embedded access to India’s SMB payment ecosystem.

What to watch

  • Number of Agent HQ merchants activated and percentage using agents weekly.
  • Attach rate of paid AI tools among PayU payment merchants and resulting merchant retention changes.
  • Measured reduction in support costs, refund handling time, chargeback losses or payment-failure rates.
  • Conversion and average-order-value uplift from conversational shopping deployments.
  • New integrations with Shopify, WooCommerce, ONDC, CRM, ERP, logistics or catalog-management platforms.
  • Regulatory guidance on AI decisioning, customer-data use, automated refunds and dispute handling in India.
  • Competitive responses from Razorpay, Cashfree, PhonePe, Shopify and major banks.
  • Bundle Agent HQ with payment gateway, checkout and merchant onboarding offers to make adoption a retention lever.
  • Launch vertical-specific templates for D2C brands, marketplaces, education, travel and local services where support and payment workflows are repetitive.
  • Add human approval thresholds, audit trails and liability controls for refunds, disputes and chargebacks.
  • Use aggregated merchant intelligence to offer AI-readiness scoring, catalog optimization and conversion recommendations.
  • Expand partnerships with commerce platforms, CRM vendors, logistics providers and AI-model providers to make agents actionable beyond payments.