AI is providing incredible opportunity for a new level of revolution: Vijay Shekhar Sharma

“Well, I would not generalise the issues to a start-up ecosystem. I will say that find a pattern, figure out what the pattern is. So let us not take, that we live in Delhi, and Delhi has a label of bad city, but that is not true,” says Vijay Shekhar Sharma, CEO, Paytm.

What have been the game changers in digital payments?
I think this nation should owe the success of this payment to UPI and the technologies that NPCI is making. I cannot admire them more than saying that they are the truest champion of what as a country, as nation, we are seeing in digital payments. The contributions like UPI Lite, contributions like RuPay credit card on UPI, these are phenomenal game-changers.
Several issues related to governance, related to regulatory issues have come out. What do you feel is at the core of these issues, seeing all of these start-ups, some of which are big unicorns?
Well, I would not generalise the issues to a start-up ecosystem. I will say that find a pattern, figure out what the pattern is. So let us not take, that we live in Delhi, and Delhi has a label of bad city, but that is not true.
So these are stereotypes that get built. Start-ups are greatly managed when they are managed disciplinary from the board, from the executives that are there.

And these few cases are very bad in terms of what has happened, but that is not a stroke of every company out there. There are incredibly well-managed companies that have changed, revolutionised the way we do many things, so I am for the start-ups.

Best thing I can tell you about Indian ecosystem is that there is a lot of domestic capital and there is a lot of international capital both are available to India.

And for a great start-up, there is never, and there is not even today, lack of any capital. So let us not misunderstand it here that there is a funding winter of any kind. In my opinion, there is a lot of money and that is available and companies are accessing it.
One of the points that Mr Amitabh Kant mentioned when asked about regulation governance issues, is the fact that so many founders are focused on innovation that sometimes these issues sort of take a backseat, and which is where these start-ups need mentoring. What is your advice?
I think there are companies that are built for certain, certain length of the opportunity, so they achieve the success if they are meant to be committedly run for that. I do not have extra advice but to say the same thing, that there are rules, regulations, and there is self-governance too. There are good practices and the best practices out there.

So there is lots of talk around AI and how businesses are going to use it to sort of spur the next level of growth. How is Paytm looking at AI and integrating AI into its business?
I have called out in a letter to shareholders that I think there is a new level of revolution. For example, like let us say if you had branches, and now came the Internet, so came the Internet banking. Now, a lot of rules had to be changed in financial services because of that. Now, if you have Internet and the machine can have extraordinary amount of knowledge, there will be newer type of products. So a lot of AI first product will come, a lot of efficiency will come, a lot of decisions will be done using AI so it is a phenomenal incredible opportunity and we internally are very happy seeing what we have seen.