Meesho has announced the launch of “Vaani – Your Meesho Dost”, India’s first Gen-AI powered conversational voice shopping assistant. This innovative tool is designed to cater to the next 500 million users who traditionally shop offline, bringing the conversational aspect of shopping into the digital realm.
In offline shopping environments, customers typically engage in conversations, describe their needs, ask questions, compare options, and seek reassurance before making a purchase. However, this behaviour has not seamlessly transitioned to digital commerce, particularly for users in tier 2+ markets who find navigating apps through typing and structured searches unintuitive.
“Vaani – Your Meesho Dost” aims to bridge this gap by enabling users to engage in natural, ongoing conversations. Users can speak in their own words, ask follow-up questions, and refine their choices, thereby enhancing their digital shopping experience. Meesho’s broader vision of conversational commerce is realised through this launch, reimagining user interaction with e-commerce via more natural, voice-led experiences.
The assistant supports users throughout the shopping journey, from discovery to purchase. It understands user intent by asking relevant follow-up questions, helps surface the most relevant products without extensive browsing, and addresses decision-making barriers through contextual information like reviews and product details. It also guides users through key steps such as selecting payment methods and confirming delivery details, reducing friction across the purchase process.
Built for scale, the system leverages on-device processing to deliver a faster, more efficient experience while optimising costs. The assistant is powered by a robust AI architecture designed for real-world usage at scale, utilising edge computing for speech understanding and synthesis to ensure low latency and cost efficiency. A multi-agent framework enables it to handle complex, multi-step shopping interactions reliably.
Sanjeev Kumar, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer at Meesho, stated, “At Meesho, AI has always been at the core of how we build for scale. With over 251 million annual transacting users, we have a deep understanding of how India shops, and that allows us to anticipate and solve for consumer needs in ways that very few platforms can.”
Early adoption of Vaani shows strong user confidence, with 79% of users saying voice simplifies shopping, 94% finding it intuitive, and 62% already trusting it for transactions. Within the first month of launch, over 1.5 million users have interacted with the assistant, with engagement being repeat-led, indicating early habit formation.
This innovation is translating into measurable impact, with users who engage with the assistant seeing a 22% higher conversion rate, moving more efficiently from discovery to purchase, and showing lower returns and cancellations.
Disclaimer: This article is based on a regulatory filing submitted to the National Stock Exchange of India (NSE).
This article is written by Arunika Jain and reviewed by Aman Shukla before publication.