Indian fintech unicorn CRED has quietly transformed itself into an AI-first organisation, deploying OpenAI's technology to deliver what it calls "concierge-like experiences at scale" for its 15 million monthly users.

The members-only platform, which rewards creditworthy individuals for timely credit card payments with exclusive offers and premium experiences, has built three AI tools that are delivering impressive results: a 14 percentage point improvement in customer satisfaction scores and a 31% drop in session abandonment rates.

The challenge of scaling premium service

CRED has always targeted India's most affluent households – users who expect exceptional design, reliability, and service. But as the company grew, maintaining that premium experience became increasingly difficult.

"As we grew – more products, more teams, more data – it became harder to maintain context and move quickly without compromising quality," explains Swamy Seetharaman from CRED. "The question we ask is, how do we make every single member in every function be 10X? For us, AI has become a huge unlock in that journey."

Three AI tools, three different audiences

CRED's AI strategy centres on three custom-built tools powered by OpenAI models including GPT-4.0, GPT-5, and o3:

Cleo is a conversational AI that engages with customers. It handles inquiries in three categories: informational requests (“What is CRED Cash?”), contextual requests (“Am I eligible for CRED Cash?”), and transactional requests (“Can I refund to my wallet?”). Cleo identifies the issue at hand, identifies the intent, aligns the questions with the appropriate standard operating procedure, and facilitates a correct and contextually appropriate response.

In just three months since launch, Cleo has achieved a 98% resolution accuracy rate, with 18% more multi-intent conversations being resolved successfully. Average handling times have decreased and session drop-offs have fallen by 31%.

Thea is designed for support agents, summarising multi-format conversations - including text, voice, and Hinglish, and suggesting next steps. This helps agents maintain CRED's premium service standards even as query volumes scale.

Stark targets operations teams, helping them create or update standard operating procedures in minutes instead of days. It's a productivity multiplier that keeps CRED's knowledge base current without creating bottlenecks.

From distrust to acceptance

It was full of difficulties for realizing the idea. "Sebastian acknowledges, "ultimately, it was a new technology that was met with denial and skepticism by many. But once teams saw results through CRED's internal evaluation framework (which also uses OpenAI models), confidence grew quickly.

"The biggest surprise has been how fast people adapt once they experience real unlocks. They see that they can be exponentially more effective and efficient with AI."

What's next

CRED isn't stopping here. The company is expanding Cleo across all business lines and building tools that detect "data dead-ends" – cases where user queries can't be answered – and feed them back into the knowledge base to improve SOPs in real time.

The more significant goal is very daring: to improve the productivity of each and every team member belonging to different functions – engineering, QA, infrastructure, compliance – by 10 times.

"With the evolution of the ecosystem, the success will rely on our speed and accuracy of actions which will involve spotting worthwhile insights from the noise and making right choices fast," Seetharaman comments.

Lessons for other companies

Seetharaman's advice for companies still hesitant about AI adoption is straightforward: "Every company must identify what's most important - whether it's efficiency, effectiveness, or both - and then leverage AI in alignment with their values."

For CRED, incorporating OpenAI's technology has aligned perfectly with two of its core values: compounding returns and being "fast and right." The company is focused on amplifying and scaling that impact.

The broader implications

CRED's approach offers a blueprint for how Indian companies can deploy AI to maintain premium service quality whilst scaling rapidly. Rather than using AI to cut costs or replace humans, CRED is using it to augment human capabilities - making support agents more effective, operations teams more productive, and customers happier.

It's a model that could prove particularly valuable in India's increasingly competitive fintech landscape, where user experience often determines which platforms win the loyalty of the country's most affluent consumers.

With early results this encouraging, CRED's AI-first transformation suggests that premium, personalised service and massive scale aren't mutually exclusive – you just need the right technology partner and a clear vision of what you're trying to achieve.