Sunday, 30 August 2026

From Google Jobs to AI-UPI

A Personal Journey in Technology Foresight

Some ideas look crazy — until the ecosystem catches up

I have never considered myself a technologist in the conventional sense.

I don’t build software or write algorithms.

But I have always been fascinated by one question:

“If technology is evolving so rapidly, why should the user have to struggle with the complexity?”

Looking back at some of my old notes, blogs and correspondence, I discover an interesting thread running through almost two decades of my thinking.

The ideas are different.

The technologies are different.

The years are different.

But the question remains remarkably similar:

Can we remove the friction between a person and a powerful new technology?

Here is my little journey.

2005 — GOOGLE JOBS

My first stop on this journey goes back to 21 December 2005.

At that time, conventional job portals were already well established.

I had written to Ashish Kashyap, then Country Manager of Google India, suggesting the possibility of Google integrating jobs into its search ecosystem.

My basic thought was simple:

Why should a job seeker have to visit a separate job portal merely to find a job?

Search already knew how to find information.

Why not jobs?

Years later, Google indeed entered the jobs-discovery space.

I subsequently wrote about the idea in:

url Google Jobs — my earlier blog

post  http://hcpreports.blogspot.in/2016/02/google-jobs.html 

I certainly don’t claim that Google’s later development was the result of my suggestion.

But the episode taught me something important:

Sometimes the future is not a completely new technology.

Sometimes it is simply an existing technology being applied to remove an unnecessary intermediary.

2017 — BHIM AND THE VOICE INTERFACE

The next significant episode came with the emergence of BHIM and UPI.

India had created something extraordinarily powerful: a common digital-payment infrastructure.

But I began wondering:

Could BHIM become simple enough for people who were not comfortable with smartphones, menus, typing and conventional digital interfaces?

My answer was:

VOICE-ACTIVATED BHIM

In April 2017, I wrote:

BHIM — The Unstoppable

https://myblogepage.blogspot.com/2017/04/bhim-unstoppable.html

I also wrote:

Let BHIM Get MAD

https://myblogepage.blogspot.com/2017/05/let-bhim-get-mad.html

and:

A Beerud Named BHIM

https://myblogepage.blogspot.com/2017/04/a-beerud-named-bhim.html

My argument was not that voice was fashionable.

It was that simplicity could be the key to inclusion.

Millions of Indians, particularly in rural areas, might find speaking much easier than navigating a complicated digital interface.

16 JUNE 2017 — I WROTE TO THE NPCI CHAIRMAN

I took the idea beyond my blog.

On 16 June 2017, I wrote to Shri A. P. Hota, then Chairman/MD & CEO of NPCI,

suggesting:

“Could the next improvement in BHIM be a ‘Voice Activated’ version —

BHIM V 4.0?”

I referred him to my blogs and explained why I thought voice could bring millions

of rural/less-literate Indians into digital payments.

Shri Hota replied the same day and asked NPCI’s product-development executive,

Vishal Anand Kanvaty, to get in touch with me.

That led to the next step.

20 JUNE 2017 — THE NPCI MEETING

Four days later, on 20 June 2017, I met Aseem Chaturvedi of NPCI to discuss the idea.

On the following day, 21 June 2017, I sent him a detailed follow-up email.

The meeting was particularly useful because it brought the idea down from the

level of imagination to the level of implementation.

Aseem’s concerns were perfectly reasonable.

For Voice-Activated BHIM to become practical, several pieces of the ecosystem

would have to fall into place:

· merchants would need suitable biometric-enabled smartphones;

· banks serving rural customers would need to participate;

· privacy, encryption and security concerns would have to be addressed;

· BHIM itself would first have to gain widespread acceptance;

· and, perhaps most importantly, there was not yet a visible “clamour”

from potential users demanding such a facility.

I agreed with the practical difficulties.

But I made one observation:

If development itself could take several months, perhaps we should begin before the demand became obvious.

That has remained one of my favourite principles of technology foresight:

By the time everybody is demanding something, it may already be too late to start building it.

2017 — THE “MULTIPLICITY OF APPS” PROBLEM

There was another part of that 21 June correspondence that now looks particularly interesting.

I quoted Shri Amitabh Kant, who was then speaking about India’s digital-payment ambitions.

One of the problems he identified was the:

“multiplicity of apps”

BHIM had been conceived partly to bring clarity to that fragmented environment — allowing customers of different banks to use the same common UPI-based payment system.

At the time, I was also watching messaging platforms such as Hike and WhatsApp moving toward payments.

The larger trend was becoming visible:

Why should the consumer need a separate app for every activity?

Why not make one common infrastructure work underneath many different consumer interfaces?

I did not have the terminology for it then.

But the underlying idea was already:

INTEROPERABILITY

2026 — THE AI EXPLOSION

Fast-forward nine years.

Artificial Intelligence has exploded.

We now have major AI providers — OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, xAI and others — while thousands of applications use their APIs to deliver specialised services.

And suddenly I encountered a new version of an old problem.

Suppose I use:

· an AI writing service;

· an AI image generator;

· an AI video service;

· an AI presentation maker;

· an AI coding assistant;

· an AI research service;

· an AI transcription service.

Many such services may require me to:

Register → create an account → add payment details → purchase credits → use service → run out of credits → recharge.

Then I move to the next service and do it all over again.

I found myself asking:

Why?

THE “CRAZY” IDEA — AN OPEN AI WALLET

So I proposed another apparently crazy idea.

Suppose I maintain:

OpenAI Wallet — ₹1,000

Google AI Wallet — ₹1,000

Anthropic Wallet — ₹1,000

xAI Wallet — ₹1,000

Now I visit an AI-powered website.

It charges ₹18.

Instead of creating another account and buying another set of credits, I simply see:

PAY WITH

OpenAI
Google
Anthropic
xAI

I select my preferred AI Wallet.

The website receives its ₹18.

I receive the service.

One trusted payment relationship. Thousands of AI services.

That was the seed of what I began calling:

AI-UPI

WHY AI-UPI ?

I am not suggesting that AI companies should merge.

Nor am I suggesting that OpenAI, Google, Anthropic or xAI should surrender their

individual billing systems.

The more realistic proposition is an:

Open AI Payment & Authorization Protocol

The analogy with UPI is conceptual.

UPI allows different banks, payment apps and merchants to participate in an

interoperable payment ecosystem.

Similarly, an AI-payment protocol could allow:

AI Provider Wallets

↕

AI Applications

↕

Consumers

to interact through a common payment/authorization layer.

The AI companies could continue competing fiercely on:

· intelligence;

· price;

· speed;

· reliability;

· models;

· multimodal capabilities;

· developer ecosystems.

But the payment interface could become interoperable.

31 AUGUST 2026 — AN INTERESTING COINCIDENCE

And then, almost as if the universe wanted to encourage the thought experiment,

today’s newspaper carried a fascinating development.

Mint reports that NPCI is preparing to make UPI AutoPay interoperable,

allowing consumers to port existing AutoPay mandates across UPI apps and

enabling merchants to move existing mandates between payment providers

without forcing customers to register afresh.

The article describes the objective in terms of moving:

from a closed-loop system to a “many-to-many” network

and reducing consumer and merchant lock-in.

That immediately caught my attention.

Because this is precisely the architectural principle behind my AI-UPI thought

experiment.

THE PARALLEL

2017 — UPI

The problem:

Too many apps and fragmented user experiences.

The answer:

Interoperable payment infrastructure.

2026 — AI

The emerging problem:

Too many AI applications and fragmented payment/credit relationships.

The possible answer:

Interoperable AI payment infrastructure.

The common principle is:

Many-to-many instead of one-to-one.

FROM BHIM V4.0 TO AI-UPI

Looking back, I see four milestones.

2005

Google Jobs

Why should job search require a separate destination?

↓

2017

Voice Activated BHIM

Why should digital payments require a complicated interface?

↓

2026

AI-UPI / Open AI Wallet

Why should every AI application require a separate payment relationship?

↓

Tomorrow

AI Agents + AI Payment

Why should an AI agent need to ask me for payment credentials every time it

wants to buy something on my behalf?

AND THAT LAST STEP MAY BE THE BIG ONE

The AI Wallet idea may ultimately be about much more than avoiding the nuisance of buying credits.

Imagine an AI agent saying:

“I have found the service you need. It costs ₹17. Shall I proceed?”

I say:

“Yes.”

The agent authenticates me.

The merchant is paid.

The service is delivered.

My financial credentials are not handed over to the merchant.

The transaction appears in my AI-payment history.

That could become a fundamental requirement of the agentic AI economy.

Because tomorrow, AI may not merely answer questions.

AI agents may transact on our behalf.

And if they do, AI identity, AI authorization and AI payment will have to work together.

WHAT I HAVE LEARNED FROM THESE EPISODES

I don’t think the lesson is:

“I predicted the future.”

That would be too grand a claim.

Ideas are cheap.

Implementation is extraordinarily difficult.

And many ideas that sound brilliant on paper never work in the real world.

The more modest — and perhaps more useful — lesson is this:

Technology foresight is often about noticing friction before it becomes a crisis.

The technologies may change.

The companies may change.

The interfaces may change.

But the friction remains.

And whenever I see:

“You need another app.”

“You need another account.”

“You need another wallet.”

“You need to register again.”

I instinctively ask:

“Why?”

THE COMMON THREAD

Looking back over 21 years, I see the same instinct recurring:

Search → Mobile → UPI → Voice → AI

But the objective remained remarkably constant:

MAKE TECHNOLOGY DISAPPEAR BEHIND SIMPLICITY.

Perhaps that is what I have really been trying to do all these years.

Not predict the future.

Just ask uncomfortable questions a little before the future arrives.

A FINAL THOUGHT

In 2017, I wondered whether a voice-activated BHIM might someday make digital

payments accessible to people who found conventional interfaces difficult.

In 2026, I am wondering whether an interoperable AI Wallet might someday make

the rapidly expanding AI economy accessible without forcing every user to

maintain dozens of separate financial relationships.

I don’t know whether AI-UPI will ever exist.

Perhaps the AI industry will invent something completely different.

But today’s move toward greater interoperability in UPI AutoPay has reinforced one

belief I have carried for a long time:

=========================================

Reference :

Translate

Sunday, 30 August 2026

From Google Jobs to AI-UPI

No comments:

Post a Comment