Key Points

The line-up includes global innovators from Japan, Korea, Singapore, Australia, Argentina and South Africa.

Standing tall among them is Paytm, the only Indian company to make the list.

According to the report, Paytm has "embedded AI across every product from onboarding and fraud detection to churn prediction and personalised cross-sell."

"The company's machine-first systems, supervised by humans, are accelerating product development, enhancing risk management, and elevating customer experience," the report stated.

Paytm has been categorised as having moderate AI exposure with high pricing power, a combination Morgan Stanley identifies as crucial for long-term monetisation.

The report also stresses that AI adopters with strong pricing power have consistently outperformed, while those without pricing strength have lagged.

This positions Paytm among the best placed to generate value as AI adoption scales across industries.

Performance data also underscores Paytm's momentum. The Morgan Stanley list of AI Adoption Leaders has delivered 44 percent returns year-to-date compared with 18 percent for the MSCI Asia Pacific Index. Paytm itself has returned 136 percent in the past 12 months, among the strongest gains across the group.

The brokerage highlights that the AI leadership cycle is shifting from semiconductors and infrastructure players to adopters who embed AI at scale. Paytm is recognised in this transition as a financial services innovator building its ecosystem on advanced technology.

This recognition comes as Paytm continues to launch AI-driven, consumer-first innovations including reminders for recurring bills, monthly spend summaries, personalised UPI IDs, downloadable UPI statements in Excel and PDF, and home screen widgets for instant money transfers.

Each of these offerings is supported by the company's machine-first AI systems that simplify money management for millions.

Morgan Stanley also notes that India has seen an increase in companies identified as AI adopters, but Paytm is the only one shortlisted into the monetisation leaders list, underlining its pioneering role in the country's technology landscape.

By being featured alongside global names such as Fast Retailing and Recruit Holdings from Japan, Kakao from Korea, Grab and ST Engineering from Singapore, REA Group from Australia, MercadoLibre from Argentina, and Discovery Limited from South Africa, Paytm is firmly positioned as a home-grown innovator driving India's leadership in financial technology.

- ANI