Paytm Launches AI-Powered Travel App ‘Checkin' for Smarter Bookings

• Introduces an interactive AI-first travel experience that is simple, delightful, cost-effective, and more consumer-friendly
• Enabled with an AI assistant for conversational trip planning that recommends destinations, personalises itineraries, and manages bookings
• Features a modern, intuitive interface designed for easy navigation, faster checkout, and transparent pricing across flights, trains, buses, and metro bookings
• Provides real-time flight tracking, keeping travellers informed throughout their journey. 

Paytm (One 97 Communications Limited), India’s full stack merchant payments leader serving MSMEs and enterprises, and a leading financial services distribution company, and the pioneer of mobile payments, QR codes, and Soundbox, has announced the launch of its new AI travel app, Paytm Checkin. This marks a significant step in Paytm’s journey to bring artificial intelligence into travel through a dedicated app that aims to redefine how people plan, book, and experience their journeys.

With Paytm Checkin, travel planning becomes an interactive experience. The in-app AI assistant understands queries intuitively, allowing travellers to ask, browse, and make bookings through simple conversation. It can recommend destinations, curate personalised itineraries, and organise bookings across flights, trains, buses, and metro, creating a seamless travel journey from planning to checkout. The AI continuously refines results based on preferences, previous selections, and travel patterns, delivering contextually relevant recommendations that improve with every interaction. These AI features are currently in early beta and will continue to evolve through real-world interactions and feedback.

Building on Paytm’s legacy of innovation and customer-focused interface, Paytm Checkin introduces a comprehensive suite of benefits that bring ease, flexibility, and transparency to travel. The platform offers zero convenience fees on bookings, ensuring complete price clarity with no hidden charges. For flight bookings, free cancellation at just ₹99 adds flexibility and peace of mind, while the Travel Pass priced at ₹249 unlocks additional savings and exclusive benefits. Paytm Assured for Buses ensures timely and reliable refunds, while Ticket Assure for Trains provides confirmed seat assistance for a smoother travel experience.

Paytm Checkin features a modern, intuitive interface for easy navigation, faster checkout, and transparent pricing, helping travellers find, compare, and book their trips effortlessly. With real-time flight tracking, it offers complete visibility and a seamless travel experience. Paytm believes artificial intelligence will redefine the way travel bookings are made by shifting from traditional searches to conversational, intuitive planning that makes travel simpler, faster, and more personal.

Vikash Jalan, CEO - Paytm Travel said, “We are taking a big step in AI-led travel with Paytm Checkin, creating a new and smarter way for people to plan and book their journeys. We believe AI will change the way travel bookings are done, and with Paytm Checkin, we are bringing a world-class, AI-first experience through a dedicated app designed to make travel planning simple, personal, and effortless.”

Paytm has pioneered mobile payments innovation in India and continues to integrate AI across multiple verticals to enhance personalization, speed, and efficiency. With Paytm Checkin, the company extends this vision to the travel segment, creating a smarter and more intuitive way to plan and book trips while ensuring reliability and transparency at every stage of the journey.


Link to the video: Here

IIT Madras Alumni Startup Is Breaking The Age Old Traditions Of Hospitality By Providing Hotel Booking By The Hour

Do you remember the days when you have to hire a cab for the entire day even though you needed to use it for a few hours? I guess no. After the dent made by services like Ola and Uber in the cab industry, it is hard to imagine booking a cab for an entire day when you need it only to go to work.

Unfortunately, this has not changed when it comes to hotel booking. Travelling is something which everyone loves. But what makes a travel costly; is the stay at a hotel. Even if you are travelling to give your exam or attend any business meeting for which you need a room just for few hours, you have to do a full day booking (12 noon – 12 noon) in a hotel, which in turns make your travel cost rise.

Sandeep Jaiswal and Pranav Prabhakar, after experiencing the same thing they felt it is unethical and unfair to be charged for an entire day when they use a room for only a few hours. And this is where they stumbled upon the idea for catering the need and founded MiStay, with the aim of breaking the age-old traditions and changing the rules of hospitality to make travel flexible and fair to travellers.

MiStay is a travel tech company which allows booking hotel rooms by the pack of hours with flexible check-in and check-out times.

“The problem with rigid full day booking affects every kind of travellers. MiStay allows travellers can book a room for an appropriate combination of slots and pay only for the time stayed. It offers, booking based on slots (8 am – 11 am (Morning slot), 12 noon – 7 pm (Day slot), 8 pm – 7 am (Night slot)). This not only fills the needs of frequent business travellers as well as leisure travellers who require room for less than a day or with flexible timings but also gives hotels a channel to increase their occupancy and revenue per available room,” says Pranav Prabhakar, Co-founder and CTO, MiStay.

Meet The Innovators

Sandeep Jaiswal who is an IIT Madras alumnus has 2 years of experience in management consulting. Most recently, he worked with strategy consulting firm, Essex Lake Group, where he devised profit enhancement solutions for one of the largest banks in South Africa, and also filed 2 patents for developing internal analytical tools. Prior to joining Essex, he co-founded a for-profit social enterprise AmrutDhara which was aimed at reducing the environmental hazard from bottled water by providing a sustainable alternative.

Whereas, Pranav Prabhakar, a computer science graduate from IIT Madras with over 3 years of experience in design and product development has worked as software engineer at LinkedIn. Prior to joining LinkedIn, he had founded a new media startup, Cinemagrapher, where he developed an innovative product to help photographers and marketers automatically create cinemagraphs from short videos. Earlier, he had also co-founded HireFellas, a curated marketplace for photographers.

At MiStay, Jaiswal is responsible for driving the overall vision of the company to ensure customer delight while leading the on-ground operations, partnerships and business development for the sustainable growth of the company. Whereas Prabhakar leads the technology and design to build innovative solutions for customers while making sure that all efforts are grounded in user-centered principles.

Business Mockup

MiStay has partnered with around 115 hotels across 8 cities in India (Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Pune, Gurgaon). The hotels range from 2 star to 5 star hotels including some chains like Pride hotels, Mango hotels, etc. With an initial investment of Rs 4 lacs, the founders developed the entire platform in-house. Launched in April 2016, the website is the consumer facing portal through which one can make a booking at a hotel.

“We have also developed MiStay Extranet, which is a software provided to the partner hotels for managing room rates and inventory. Later in October 2016, we have launched MiStay for Business, a portal developed for corporates, where the travel managers in any company can make bookings on behalf of the company employees,” says Prabhakar.

Duo has also developed the effective payment mode. They have 2 models of payment- Pay at Hotel, where customer makes direct payment at the hotel in which TAC is collected by MiStay for all bookings for a month at the end of the month. Another is Pay Online, where customer pays online to MiStay at the time of booking. The net amount after deducting TAC is transferred to the hotel before the guest checks in.

“In case of last minute booking or a booking happens on a non working day, payment is transferred on the day of check in or next working day. Hotels can opt for either or both modes of payment,” informs Prabhakar.

MiStay takes around 20% of the booking amount as referral commission from the partner hotels on the bookings done through the platform.

What Makes Them Stand Strong In The Market

If we look at the figuers, hotel industry in India is a $20 billion market and MiStay is targeting the business travel segment primarily, which is estimated to constitute around $12-14 billion of the total hotel booking market. In India, this market has just started getting recognized. And various OTAs like Goibibo, MakeMyTrip, etc. as well as some other startups working on the same concept are the key competitors for MiStay. But if we talk about the global market, startup competes with players like DayUse.com and ByHours.com.

“Going forward, direct tie-ups with corporates to manage their employees’ business travel will be a key customer acquisition channel. Hence, the offline travel agents serving the corporates would be competitor in that market,” says Prabhakar.

Despite competing with companies like MayMyTrip, Goibibo etc. there USP, extreme due-diligence in partnering with hotels is something which makes founders stand strong in the market.

“Apart from the two core pillars – paying only for time stayed, and flexible check-in/check-out times, another key aspect that differentiates MiStay from any other player in the industry is the extreme due-diligence in partnering with hotels. All the partner hotels are strategically located near key business hubs of the cities or near the transit areas like airports and railway stations. More than 75% of the MiStay partner hotels have Tripadvisor rating more than 4 out of 5,” says Prabhakar.

Future Map

In the short span of time, this Bengaluru-based startup has seen 36% of repeated customers. MiStay, which was one of the 10 startups nationally selected for Axillor Ventures Accelerator program intend to make their every customer their brand evangelist by ensuring them the best hotel experience.

“We have already started seeing sudden growth in last few weeks. We have seen more than 200% month-on-month growth, and this is likely to increase multi-folds as we start tapping various growth channels,” concludes Prabhakar..

Our Take

Online penetration in hotel booking in India is only around 20% and if we talk about corporate hotel booking market in India, it is very fragmented, unorganized and largely served offline. However, the industry is slowing moving towards becoming more online. With the help off mushrooming startups like Mistay, Self-Booking Technology (SBTs) are going to be the trend in corporate travel market in coming years.

How This Startup Is Helping Commuters To Cut Time By Using GPS Feed From Buses

CarWale Founder and CEO, Mohit Dubey, Nikhil Aggarwal and IIT Delhi alumni, Vinayak Bhavnani realised that not more than 5% percent of Indians would own a car or any form of private transport at any point in their lives. Even from an infrastructure perspective, they recognized that most of the cities in India are not equipped to handle car ownership beyond these levels. Hence the majority of Indians will continue to rely on public transportation as their primary mode of transit.

Further, they witnessed that alternate ways of travelling within a city were emerging (shared bikes, shuttles etc) and getting more and more dynamic in terms of availability, pricing, etc. implying the need for a single platform that can provide information on all these different options so that a commuter can plan the most efficient trip.

However, the experience of public transit is extremely broken and has tremendous frictions. Sensing the need to address this daunting problem and tap the untapped market, the trio founded Zophop in 2014.

“With an intention to make everyday city commute hassle-free and convenient for the majority of the population in the country, Zophop was launched in 2014 to address, best multi-modal trip, real time information on availability and digital, smart ticketing for public transportation,” says Nikhil Aggarwal, COO, Co-founder, Zophop.

Mumbai-based startup is a mobile application targeted at making daily commute easier for people using public modes of travel. Zophop 1.0 was a multi-modal trip planner for 15 cities in India covering local trains, city buses, metro, cabs and autos. Zophop 2.0 was launched in early 2016 after the team realized that within urban transit, the biggest problem is the 15 min+ waiting time taken by buses with absolutely no visibility on arrival.

“In order to facilitate multi-modal transit and make lives simpler, the team decided to inform people about their ‘next bus’ and started providing real time information on buses on Zophop. It is the first and only platform to have a sizeable fleet for ‘live’ ETA as compared to both their local and international competitors. Zophop 3.0 now takes the consumer proposition from information to transactions and facilitates end-to-end seamless transit experiences,” says Nikhil.

Meet The Brain Behind It

27 year old Vinayak has worked on chat and voice products and did his thesis on LTE/4G. Before starting his entrepreneurial journey, Vinayak worked with Directi on mobile chat and voice products for 2 years. At Zophop, IIT-Delhi grads have been responsible for charting the product roadmap of the company. Through a combination of a deep understanding of the consumer need and technology, Vinayak has ensured that Zophop is the first-to-market globally with product features.

Whereas if we talk about Nikhil, prior co-founding Zophop, he had worked with Morgan Stanley's investment banking team in India for 6 long years where he used to cover fields like technology, automotive and real estate sectors. At Zophop, Nikhil plays an instrumental role in architecting the strategic roadmap for the company and building a robust business model. Nikhil is responsible for growing the information supply-side of the business and overseeing operations.

A Bumpy Ride

The biggest challenge during the early day was to develop a deep understanding of the market and understand what their target audience needs. Equally challenging during the early days was to build the right team. “Over the last few years, the additional challenge has been to aggregate data of buses especially when in most cases it simply doesn’t exist. We have been successful in deploying some innovative go-to-market strategies and technology to address this,” says Nikhil.

In its journey of building the consumer proposition, the company also realised the need to build and deploy enterprise tools at the bus operators end. “Zophop has installed GPS in 1,000+ buses and deployed dynamic scheduling tools so that it can generate real-time information. As a sector, public transit has limited or unused technology infrastructure and Zophop has taken a lead in deploying this infrastructure to power the consumer proposition,” says Nikhil.

Today, Zophop has associated with around 10 transport providers in cities such as Mumbai, Kolkata, Nagpur and Indore to offer either real-time information or mobile ticketing. It has also partnered with private transportation companies Jugnoo, Uber, Prasanna Purple and Bhagirathi Travels to allow users to search for and choose their services as alternative transit options.

Understanding Technology More Closely

Zophop often install GPS on buses which enable commuters to track the real position of a bus, it's time of arrival at any bus stop on a route. “We call this the Uber+ experience and allow commuters to spend their valuable time with friends and family instead of standing in the heat or rain at a bus stop. We use the GPS feed from the buses and combine it with dynamic scheduling information i.e which bus is on which route in real time, then predict the ETA using a proprietary algorithm to all stops on the route based on current vehicle movement, historical data, traffic information etc, explains Nikhil.

Not only this, with Zophop, commuters can also purchase tickets on its app which is very similar to booking a movie ticket. Users can purchase a mobile pass or ticket directly on Zophop - anytime, anywhere. “As a transit company it is important to also make the entire journey comfortable, hence we provide the following additional key features - multi-modal journey planning, voice alerts on next stop arrival, ability to share trip from a safety perspective,” says Nikhil.

Funds Flowing In

Zophop, which just returned from attending Innotrek this year after interacting with prominent Silicon Valley investors and experts, tech campus visits to global giants, had raised angel funding from leading technology entrepreneurs and investors such as Anupam Mittal (Founder, Shaadi.com), Satyan Gajwani (MD, Times Internet) and Amit Singhal (Previously SVP, Google) in year 2015.

Road Ahead

Currently, Zophop is present in around 15 cities in India but at different stages of deployment. They have claims that most of its traffic is generated from Mumbai and it’s suburbs, Nagpur and Kolkata.Currently providing live bus tracking information for 5,000 buses and have 50,000+ monthly active users,

Currently providing live bus tracking information for 5,000 buses and have 50,000+ monthly active users, Zophop is planning to bring 1 lakh live buses for ETA or ticketing on its platform in the next two to three years. Further, it aims to provide users with options to choose and combine these buses with other modes of transportation.

“The team envisages Zophop as a public transit assistant to every Indian. Zophop plans to create a seamless payment experience across modes in the same way that exists in other countries through smart cards.In the future, it also plans to leapfrog smart cards and enable payment via mobile phones,” concludes Nikhil.

How This Startup Is Helping Commuters To Cut Time By Using GPS Feed From Buses

CarWale Founder and CEO, Mohit Dubey, Nikhil Aggarwal and IIT Delhi alumni, Vinayak Bhavnani realised that not more than 5% percent of Indians would own a car or any form of private transport at any point in their lives. Even from an infrastructure perspective, they recognized that most of the cities in India are not equipped to handle car ownership beyond these levels. Hence the majority of Indians will continue to rely on public transportation as their primary mode of transit.

Further, they witnessed that alternate ways of travelling within a city were emerging (shared bikes, shuttles etc) and getting more and more dynamic in terms of availability, pricing, etc. implying the need for a single platform that can provide information on all these different options so that a commuter can plan the most efficient trip.

However, the experience of public transit is extremely broken and has tremendous frictions. Sensing the need to address this daunting problem and tap the untapped market, the trio founded Zophop in 2014.

“With an intention to make everyday city commute hassle-free and convenient for the majority of the population in the country, Zophop was launched in 2014 to address, best multi-modal trip, real time information on availability and digital, smart ticketing for public transportation,” says Nikhil Aggarwal, COO, Co-founder, Zophop.

Mumbai-based startup is a mobile application targeted at making daily commute easier for people using public modes of travel. Zophop 1.0 was a multi-modal trip planner for 15 cities in India covering local trains, city buses, metro, cabs and autos. Zophop 2.0 was launched in early 2016 after the team realized that within urban transit, the biggest problem is the 15 min+ waiting time taken by buses with absolutely no visibility on arrival.

“In order to facilitate multi-modal transit and make lives simpler, the team decided to inform people about their ‘next bus’ and started providing real time information on buses on Zophop. It is the first and only platform to have a sizeable fleet for ‘live’ ETA as compared to both their local and international competitors. Zophop 3.0 now takes the consumer proposition from information to transactions and facilitates end-to-end seamless transit experiences,” says Nikhil.

Meet The Brain Behind It

27 year old Vinayak has worked on chat and voice products and did his thesis on LTE/4G. Before starting his entrepreneurial journey, Vinayak worked with Directi on mobile chat and voice products for 2 years. At Zophop, IIT-Delhi grads have been responsible for charting the product roadmap of the company. Through a combination of a deep understanding of the consumer need and technology, Vinayak has ensured that Zophop is the first-to-market globally with product features.

Whereas if we talk about Nikhil, prior co-founding Zophop, he had worked with Morgan Stanley's investment banking team in India for 6 long years where he used to cover fields like technology, automotive and real estate sectors. At Zophop, Nikhil plays an instrumental role in architecting the strategic roadmap for the company and building a robust business model. Nikhil is responsible for growing the information supply-side of the business and overseeing operations.

A Bumpy Ride

The biggest challenge during the early day was to develop a deep understanding of the market and understand what their target audience needs. Equally challenging during the early days was to build the right team. “Over the last few years, the additional challenge has been to aggregate data of buses especially when in most cases it simply doesn’t exist. We have been successful in deploying some innovative go-to-market strategies and technology to address this,” says Nikhil.

In its journey of building the consumer proposition, the company also realised the need to build and deploy enterprise tools at the bus operators end. “Zophop has installed GPS in 1,000+ buses and deployed dynamic scheduling tools so that it can generate real-time information. As a sector, public transit has limited or unused technology infrastructure and Zophop has taken a lead in deploying this infrastructure to power the consumer proposition,” says Nikhil.

Today, Zophop has associated with around 10 transport providers in cities such as Mumbai, Kolkata, Nagpur and Indore to offer either real-time information or mobile ticketing. It has also partnered with private transportation companies Jugnoo, Uber, Prasanna Purple and Bhagirathi Travels to allow users to search for and choose their services as alternative transit options.

Understanding Technology More Closely

Zophop often install GPS on buses which enable commuters to track the real position of a bus, it's time of arrival at any bus stop on a route. “We call this the Uber+ experience and allow commuters to spend their valuable time with friends and family instead of standing in the heat or rain at a bus stop. We use the GPS feed from the buses and combine it with dynamic scheduling information i.e which bus is on which route in real time, then predict the ETA using a proprietary algorithm to all stops on the route based on current vehicle movement, historical data, traffic information etc, explains Nikhil.

Not only this, with Zophop, commuters can also purchase tickets on its app which is very similar to booking a movie ticket. Users can purchase a mobile pass or ticket directly on Zophop - anytime, anywhere. “As a transit company it is important to also make the entire journey comfortable, hence we provide the following additional key features - multi-modal journey planning, voice alerts on next stop arrival, ability to share trip from a safety perspective,” says Nikhil.

Funds Flowing In

Zophop, which just returned from attending Innotrek this year after interacting with prominent Silicon Valley investors and experts, tech campus visits to global giants, had raised angel funding from leading technology entrepreneurs and investors such as Anupam Mittal (Founder, Shaadi.com), Satyan Gajwani (MD, Times Internet) and Amit Singhal (Previously SVP, Google) in year 2015.

Road Ahead

Currently, Zophop is present in around 15 cities in India but at different stages of deployment. They have claims that most of its traffic is generated from Mumbai and it’s suburbs, Nagpur and Kolkata.Currently providing live bus tracking information for 5,000 buses and have 50,000+ monthly active users,

Currently providing live bus tracking information for 5,000 buses and have 50,000+ monthly active users, Zophop is planning to bring 1 lakh live buses for ETA or ticketing on its platform in the next two to three years. Further, it aims to provide users with options to choose and combine these buses with other modes of transportation.

“The team envisages Zophop as a public transit assistant to every Indian. Zophop plans to create a seamless payment experience across modes in the same way that exists in other countries through smart cards.In the future, it also plans to leapfrog smart cards and enable payment via mobile phones,” concludes Nikhil.