What we learned from the first few months of Paystack Index

A few months ago, we launched Paystack Index, an early-access product that lets AI agents such as Claude, ChatGPT and OpenClaw complete real transactions for you.

 

You can buy airtime and data, order food or groceries through Chowdeck or send money using Zap. You tell your agent what you need, review the details and approve the transaction.

 

We launched Index with a question: once people could ask an AI agent to do something with real money, what would they actually ask it to do?

 

We honestly weren’t sure.

 

Agentic commerce is still new, and “let your AI buy things” is the kind of sentence that makes some people curious and others understandably sceptical. So we started small, built Index on Paystack’s existing payment infrastructure and invited people to try it.

 

The first few months gave us some early answers.

More than 17,000 people joined the waitlist.

 

Over 1000 people connected Index to an AI agent, and together, early users completed over 1,000 transactions. Claude has been the most popular agent so far.

 

Those numbers tell us that people are curious, but they don’t tell us what makes Index useful. For that, we looked at what people were actually doing with it, and here’s what we found.

Every Sunday used to end the same way for Tobi.

 

He had built a sports prediction app for the World Cup. Friends predicted match results, winners received small prizes, and Tobi made every transfer manually, one at a time.

 

He first started using Paystack Index in Claude to prepare the transfers in bulk. Then he went further and connected Index to the app itself.

 

Now, when a friend wins, they can request their prizes from the app’s dashboard. The transfer is completed through Index without Tobi having to create it manually. “They think I’m back there approving each transfer,” he told us. “I haven’t opened it in weeks.”

 

Tobi’s experience showed us that the chat can be a starting point, not necessarily the final destination. Once people trust a workflow, they begin looking for ways to make it part of the products and processes they already use.

For Emeka, the main use case for Index is bulk transfers.

 

He runs a gateway called Hermes that connects WhatsApp to Paystack Index. When he needs to pay several people, he sends one message containing the account details and amounts, then reviews and approves the transfers together.

 

Paying 12 people now feels much closer to sending one text than completing 12 separate transactions.

 

The lesson wasn’t only that bulk transfers could be faster. It was that Index became more useful when Emeka could access it from a tool that was already part of his day.

Before Index, Eniola waited until the end of each month, downloaded her bank statements and uploaded them to Claude to understand where her money had gone.

 

Now that her Zap account is connected to Index, she uses a simple Claude workflow to get a breakdown of her Zap spending whenever she needs one.

 

No statement downloads. No pivot tables. No need to wait until month-end.

 

Eniola’s workflow showed us that people don’t only want their agents to move money. They also want help understanding it.

 

[Names have been changed to protect user privacy.]

 

Taken together, these stories point to a simple pattern: Index is most useful when it removes repetitive steps or makes information easier to act on.

 

They’ve also shown us a few practical ways more people can use it.

If any of the problems above sound familiar, here are three workflows inspired by what early users are doing.

 

Bulk send

Prepare several transfers from one structured prompt. Your agent will show you the details so you can review the recipient names, account numbers and amounts before approving.

 

Try: “Prepare these 10 transfers using Paystack Index: [Account number], [Bank], [Amount], [Narration].”

 

Metronome

Metronome is useful for a group of payments you make regularly, such as allowances, household payments or airtime.

 

Set up the list once. When the payments are due, ask your AI agent to prepare them, review the details and approve.

 

Download Metronome from the Index skills library, upload it to your AI agent, then say: “Start Metronome.”

 

Pulse

Pulse gives you a simple breakdown of your Zap spending, including where your money went and patterns you may want to pay attention to.

 

Download Pulse from the Index skills library, upload it to your AI agent, then say: “Check Pulse.”

 

These workflows are useful today. They’re also helping us understand what Index could become.

Across the stories and transactions from our first month, the same pattern kept appearing: Index was most useful when the task was specific, repetitive and easy to review.

 

That’s helping us understand what to build next.

 

We’re bringing more merchants and services into Index, with more African markets to follow. As we do, we’ll keep paying attention to where agents save people meaningful time, where people still want a human checkpoint and what merchants need to participate in this new kind of commerce.

 

We still have plenty of questions. How much do people want to delegate to an agent? Which tasks feel meaningfully easier in a conversation? When does an agent save time, and when does it simply add another step?

 

Agentic commerce is still early. A few months in, we’re less interested in predicting exactly what it will become than in learning from the people already putting it to work.

Get early access.

 

Already using Index? We’d love to know what you’re doing with it and what you want it to do next. Tag us on Instagram at @tsglabs or on X at @TSG_Labs.

 

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