Fintech company Pine Labs has introduced India’s first agent-to-agent payment capability, allowing artificial intelligence systems to independently complete transactions on behalf of users through an extension of UPI’s existing mandate framework.
The company launched the Pine Labs Payment Protocol (P3P), which enables users to provide a one-time payment approval that can be assigned to an AI agent. The agent can then decide when to execute payments based on predefined conditions, pricing limits and negotiations with another AI agent.
The technology aims to remove the need for human approval at every transaction stage, addressing a key limitation in current digital payment systems.
Pine Labs demonstrated the capability in partnership with Gullak, a digital gold savings platform. Under the system, users can instruct an AI agent to automatically buy gold when prices reach a specific level. After receiving approval, the agent tracks market movements and completes the purchase without requiring additional user action.
The company is also working with Vijay Sales to deploy a similar system for electronics purchases. Customers will be able to set target prices for products, allowing AI agents to negotiate and complete purchases once the desired price is reached.
P3P is built on UPI’s existing payment infrastructure, including one-time mandates and block-and-debit mechanisms. Pine Labs said the platform will support “agentic commerce”, where AI-powered software agents can search, negotiate and make payments on behalf of users.
The system includes security features such as spending limits, identity verification and transaction audit trails to ensure controlled and transparent automated payments.
With this launch, Pine Labs aims to bring AI-driven automation into everyday digital commerce, enabling machines to handle purchasing decisions while keeping users in control through predefined permissions.
