‘Don't rush to deploy AI build foundations first’: PhonePe CTO Rahul Chari

Move fast, lean into artificial intelligence (AI) and absorb all the capability it offers but build the right organisational scaffolding before unleashing AI everywhere, PhonePe founder and chief technology officer Rahul Chari said on Thursday.

The real challenge lies in using AI thoughtfully and building the right foundational models rather than rushing deployment, according to him.

“This may not be the most popular opinion, but discretion is often the better part of valour. AI is here to stay. Its potential is immense. The real challenge is using it the right way, not just the fastest way,” Chari said at the ET AI Conclave & Awards 2025.


AI offers an opportunity to drive automation across the enterprise, not just within engineering teams, he said, adding, “Across the board, there’s an opportunity to leverage AI to drive significant automation, so productivity increases for the entire organisation, not just the engineering workforce.”

According to him, organisations should adopt AI in a phased manner, starting with human-in-the-loop systems. “The right approach is to start with human-in-the-loop enablement, reduce friction and time, and only then progressively remove humans from the loop where it makes sense,” he said.

Chari said that 99% of the time, things work fine, but in the 1% of cases where production breaks down, there is a need for engineers who understand the system deeply to keep mean time to recovery low and avoid serious business impact.

On how an organisation should prepare to move into an AI-first engineering world, he advocated starting by defining the AI infrastructure sought to be built.

PhonePe evaluates its AI strategy through three lenses, he said.

“At PhonePe, we think about this in three ways. First, we want to significantly increase the efficiency of a large engineering team. Second, we want to take AI-first features to production as fast as possible for our users. Third, we want to increase the efficiency of operations across the entire organisation,” he said.

Chari also advised companies not to default to rebuilding systems from scratch as they adopt AI.