Version 1: IndiaMART now uses AI in over 20 kinds of work, and warns the payoff may swing

The online market for shops and factories grew profit about 10%, while its voice AI talks to up to 1 lakh buyers a day.

Picture this. Every day, somewhere between 80,000 and 1 lakh buyers speak to a voice that is not a human. It is an AI agent working for IndiaMART, the online market where shops and factories buy from each other. The company talked about this on its earnings call for the July to September 2026 quarter.

IndiaMART shared its results on 27 October 2026. Profit rose about 10%. On the call, founder and CEO Dinesh Agarwal said AI now works in more than 20 parts of the business. He also gave a warning. The same AI tools are now in everyone's hands, so the gain for IndiaMART could swing up and down for the next two to four years.

First, what is IndiaMART?

Most online shopping you know is one person buying one thing, like a phone cover or a pair of shoes. That is business to consumer. IndiaMART is business to business, often called B2B.

Think of a school canteen owner who needs 500 steel water bottles. Or a small shop that wants 200 rolls of packing tape. They will not find these in a mall. They search IndiaMART, find a factory or a trader, and ask for a price.

The company began in 1996, set up by two cousins, Dinesh Agarwal and Brijesh Agrawal, and is based in Noida. When it began, India had only 15,000 internet users. In 2019 it became the first online B2B market in India to list on the stock market.

How does IndiaMART make money?

Buyers use IndiaMART for free. Sellers pay. A seller pays a fee to list products on a shop page, called a storefront, and to receive business leads, as one report on the results explains.

A lead is a ready buyer. Imagine a friend telling a samosa stall owner, "My office wants 100 samosas tomorrow, call this number." That phone number is a lead. The stall owner still has to win the order, but now he knows who to call.

At the end of September, 2.17 lakh sellers were paying IndiaMART, and there were 89 lakh storefronts in all, up 4% in a year. On average, each paying seller now brings in about Rs 72,000 a year, up 10%.

Paying sellers fell 2% to 2.17 lakh while yearly revenue per paying seller rose 10% to Rs 72,000 — Fewer paying sellers, but each one pays more on average.

The numbers, in simple words

Revenue is all the money a company earns from its service before paying any costs. IndiaMART's revenue for the whole group was Rs 429 crore, up 10% from Rs 391 crore a year ago. This includes Rs 37 crore from Busy Infotech, its accounting software unit.

Profit is what is left after paying all costs, like the pocket money left after chai and bus fare. The company's net profit was Rs 91 crore. The Economic Times puts it at Rs 90.8 crore, up 9.8% from Rs 82.7 crore a year earlier. Still, profit was far lower than the Rs 172.2 crore of the April to June quarter, Inc42 noted.

There is one more useful number. Sellers usually pay for a year or more up front. Money paid early for a service still to be given is called deferred revenue. Think of paying a full year of tuition fees in April. The tutor has your money, but still owes you the lessons. IndiaMART's deferred revenue stood at Rs 2,029 crore, up 16% in a year.

Where is AI doing the work?

Dinesh Agarwal listed the kinds of work where AI now helps. Among them: getting ready for sales calls, cleaning up data, booking sales meetings, fixing customer complaints, designing product catalogues, sorting products into the right categories, checks and audits, and verifying that users are real.

The biggest one touches buyers directly. For over a year, IndiaMART's voice AI agents have been speaking with 80,000 to 1 lakh buyers every day. What a buyer asks for turns into a buy lead or a request for quotation, and goes live on IndiaMART for sellers to see.

A request for quotation is like asking three tailors for their price before you pick one. The buyer says what is needed, and sellers reply with prices.

Four steps: a buyer speaks to the AI voice agent, the AI notes the need, a buy lead goes live, sellers reply with prices — How a buyer's call turns into a lead for sellers.

IndiaMART does not build its own AI brain. It uses many outside AI models, including Gemini, Claude, ChatGPT, Gemma, Alibaba's Qwen and Grok. The company prefers ready models because making AI is not the company's main work. A dhaba buys gas cylinders instead of drilling for gas. The idea is the same.

IndiaMART says AI now works in more than 20 parts of the business — AI is now used in more than 20 kinds of work at IndiaMART.

So why the warning?

Here is the twist. AI lets IndiaMART do things it could not do before. But the same kind of tools now sit with the public too, so people can do many things on their own. Because of this, Dinesh Agarwal said, the net gain from AI could stay up and down over the next two to four years.

In simple words, a smart tool that helps IndiaMART can also help a rival, or a new player, do a similar job more cheaply. The same report explained that AI lowers the barrier to entry for others.

His answer is IndiaMART's own data, collected over many years. Used well with AI, he said, it can help the company protect and grow its turf. "We understand AI, we are using it effectively," he told the call.

The signs to watch under the profit

Profit went up, but some other numbers went down. Unique business enquiries, meaning fresh buying requests, were 27 million for the quarter. A year earlier, in the same quarter, IndiaMART reported 31 million. Paying sellers were 2.22 lakh then, against 2.17 lakh now, a fall of about 2%.

So IndiaMART is earning more from each seller, while fewer sellers are paying and fewer fresh requests are coming in. In its results statement, the company said AI is central to how buyers find sellers and get matched with them.

What this means for a small seller

Paying more, on average. The average paying seller now brings IndiaMART about Rs 72,000 a year, 10% more than a year ago.
Leads from voice calls. Some buyers may never type a word. They speak to the AI, and their need appears as a lead.
More checks. AI is now used to verify that users are real and to run audits.
Accounting tools joining in. IndiaMART said it has begun linking Busy, Livekeeping and IndiaMART behind the scenes. Busy brought in Rs 37 crore of revenue this quarter.

Watch Dinesh Agarwal talk business

This video, from IndiaMART's own YouTube channel, is its Business Today interview on the April to June 2026 results, the quarter just before this one.

Watch on YouTube

And this longer podcast with Raj Shamani, listed on IndiaMART's own page, is about building a brand and the hidden openings in business to business selling.