Festive season brings record consumer demand, more work for merchants

India’s festive season has become a defining period for consumer demand, bringing a sustained surge in activity across retail, dining, travel, gifting and everyday commerce. What begins with the anticipation of celebrations translates into weeks of heightened business activity, as merchants across categories prepare for more customers, more transactions and a faster pace of operations.

This heightened activity is already reflected in festive demand. Recent industry reports indicate that festive demand in 2026 has reached a five-year high, with strong growth across consumer durables, automobiles and apparel. For merchants, this increase in activity also brings more customer interactions, payment-related queries, service requests and business requirements to manage alongside their everyday operations.

BharatPe Introduces AI Assistant for Merchants

BharatPe Agentic AI brings an intelligent, 24×7 assistant to the BharatPe for Business app, built with Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform on Google Cloud. Designed to understand merchant requirements and take action across more than 60 live systems in real time, it combines voice and chat-based assistance to provide personalised support in the merchant’s preferred language.

Key Capabilities of BharatPe Agentic AI

–24×7 AI business assistance: Gives merchants access to an intelligent assistant to support their day-to-day business requirements beyond traditional support hours.

–Action beyond conversations: Understands merchant requirements and can take action across more than 60 live systems in real time, moving beyond simply answering queries.

–Voice-first, multilingual experience: Merchants can interact through voice in Hindi, English, Hinglish and supported regional languages, with chat available as a fallback.

–Personalised assistance: Uses relevant business context, including screen activity, interaction history and previous support tickets, to provide more contextual assistance.

–Support for business issues: Can assist with complaints and chargebacks, while helping merchants raise requests, track them and receive relevant updates.

–Relevant business solutions: Based on merchant requirements, the assistant can suggest relevant BharatPe products and solutions, including Credit-on-UPI, loans and POS.

–Natural, conversational interaction: Merchants can interact naturally, interrupt the assistant mid-conversation and choose their preferred persona, avatar and voice, without navigating IVR menus, waiting on hold or following up for a callback.

Getting Started with BharatPe Agentic AI

–Merchants can access BharatPe Agentic AI through the BharatPe for Business app.

–The assistant can be accessed through voice or chat, depending on the merchant’s preference.

–Merchants can interact with the assistant in Hindi, English, Hinglish and supported regional languages.

–Based on the merchant’s requirement, the assistant can provide relevant information, initiate actions and follow up with updates across connected BharatPe systems.

Enhancing Support for the Festive Economy

BharatPe Agentic AI brings assistance, context and task execution together within the BharatPe for Business app. It can proactively follow up on requests, flag relevant issues and share updates, helping merchants spend less time navigating support processes and more time managing their businesses.

With India’s festive demand already showing strong momentum, BharatPe Agentic AI brings an AI-first approach to supporting the merchants powering the country’s festive economy, helping them manage everyday business requirements with greater ease, responsiveness and personalisation. (ANI)

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by Asianetnews Editorial staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)