Pine Labs launches AI-powered payments protocol for UPI transactions

Pine Labs, one of India’s leading fintech companies, has introduced the Pine Labs Payment Protocol (P3P), a new payments infrastructure that enables artificial intelligence (AI) agents to execute Unified Payments Interface (UPI) transactions without requiring real-time user authentication.

According to the company, the protocol addresses a major hurdle in agentic commerce. While AI agents can already search, compare products, and make purchase decisions, they are unable to complete transactions because UPI payments require users to authenticate each payment through an MPIN or another approval mechanism.

P3P extends UPI’s existing mandate framework, including One-Time Mandates and Reserve Pay, allowing consumers to authorise spending upfront. Once authorised, AI agents can complete transactions within specified limits without needing further user approval.

According to Pine Labs, the protocol combines UPI payment rails with Grantex’s delegated authorisation and identity verification capabilities, while using HTTP 402, an open web standard for machine-readable payment requests, to facilitate secure and auditable agent-to-agent transactions. Consumers retain control through spending limits, agent verification and the ability to revoke mandates at any time.

The protocol is already live in production, with digital gold savings platform Gullak becoming the first commercial deployment. Under the integration, users can set investment rules, such as purchasing gold when prices fall below a specified threshold, while an AI agent automatically executes the transaction once the condition is met.

Pine Labs CEO Amrish Rau said the protocol builds on capabilities already available within India’s payments ecosystem and creates the missing layer required for autonomous commerce, enabling new forms of consumer behaviour driven by AI-powered agents.

Pine Labs said additional deployments are underway across retail, fintech and travel sectors. Electronics retailer Vijay Sales is currently running a proof of concept that would allow consumers to deploy AI agents to purchase products automatically when prices reach target levels.