PayU launches AI voice assistant to streamline merchant onboarding

By Vriti Gothi

PayU has introduced an AI-powered outbound voice call assistant aimed at simplifying merchant onboarding, as the company advances its strategy to become an AI-native platform across the merchant lifecycle.

Merchant onboarding in payments has historically been a resource-intensive process, often requiring extensive documentation, KYC verification, and multiple activation steps. These frictions can lead to delays and drop-offs, particularly among smaller businesses with limited operational bandwidth. PayU’s latest deployment seeks to address these inefficiencies through automation and conversational AI.

The voice assistant proactively engages merchant leads—particularly those yet to initiate onboarding—through natural language conversations in English and Hindi. It guides users through key onboarding steps while capturing critical business data, including website details, revenue expectations, and business category. The system is designed to improve lead qualification, accelerate verification, and reduce abandonment rates by routing merchants to relevant support channels when needed, including escalation to human account managers.

“We’re entering an era where Voice AI is becoming a core driver of how businesses operate and grow,” said Manas Mishra, Chief Product Officer at PayU and Wibmo. “At PayU, we are steadily building an AI-native platform where merchants remain at the center of every innovation. Our AI-Powered Outbound Voice Call Assistant is one example of how we are removing friction across the merchant lifecycle, from onboarding to activation and beyond, while enabling our teams to focus on deeper, high-impact engagement.”

The launch reflects a broader industry shift towards embedding AI across operational workflows, particularly in areas such as customer acquisition, onboarding, and support. Voice-based interfaces, in particular, are gaining traction for their ability to engage users in low-literacy or high-friction environments, making them relevant in diverse markets like India.

PayU said it plans to extend the use of voice AI across additional merchant touchpoints, including KYC drop-off recovery, activation workflows, product requests, and cross-sell initiatives. The company also intends to scale the solution across multiple languages to support a wider merchant base.

The move underscores how FinTech firms are increasingly leveraging AI to reduce operational costs while improving user experience, as competition intensifies in digital payments and merchant services.