Paytm To Lead India’s Growth As A Superpower In The Artificial General Intelligence Realm: Vijay Shekhar Sharma

Artificial intelligence (AI) took centre stage at fintech juggernaut Paytm’s annual general meeting (AGM) on Tuesday (September 12). Founder and chief executive officer (CEO) Vijay Shekhar Sharma told shareholders that Paytm will lead the country’s growth as a global superpower in the area of artificial general intelligence (AGI). 

“Focussing on AGI, we will soon become a global superpower and Paytm will lead this,” Sharma said. 

In simple words, AGI refers to AI models that can perform tasks autonomously to achieve objectives against current generative AI products that need some human intervention.

Elaborating on this, he said that Paytm’s AGI stack will create opportunities to lower costs and make the country’s financial system safer and more secure. 

Sharma added that the fintech major’s AI stack will ‘serve’ the needs of India’s financial services ecosystem for future decades with an ‘eye’ on safety, security and various risks involved in the sector. 

On Paytm’s future trajectory, Sharma said that the fintech major aims to serve half a billion Indians with the help of technology.

It is pertinent to note that this was the fintech major’s second AGM since its listing. This year’s annual meeting was largely a positive affair compared to last year when the fintech major was grappling with mounting losses and increasing competition. 

At the AGM 2023, the company executives sported happy smiles while highlighting Paytm’s positive growth metrics across the board. Sharma told the shareholders that Paytm aims to make the company free cash flow positive in the near future despite hefty investments in building new products and expanding distribution. 

Paytm’s president and chief operating officer (COO) Bhavesh Gupta also assuaged stakeholders on the restrictions imposed by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on subsidiary Paytm Payments Bank for onboarding new customers. While he did not specify a timeline, the fintech major is said to be hopeful of resuming full-scale onboarding by March 2024. 

Sharma reiterated his AI pitch weeks after he first said that the company is looking to build a full-fledged AGI stack. Back then, he had underlined his global ambitions saying that the company had scaled investments in the AI space.

Meanwhile, Paytm continues to invest aggressively in launching new products while slashing losses. On the sidelines of the recently concluded Global Fintech Fest 2023, Paytm rolled out a slew of new offerings, including Credit Line on UPI, Billpay Connect and UPI Tap & Pay, in partnership with the NPCI.

Even as competition looms from PhonePe, Paytm has cut back losses and scaled revenues. The fintech major’s consolidated net loss fell to INR 358.4 Cr in the first quarter (Q1) of the financial year 2023-24 (FY24) compared to INR 645.4 Cr in Q1 FY23.

Shares of One97 Communications, the parent company of Paytm, closed 4.34% lower at INR 864.95 on the BSE on Tuesday (September 12).

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