Sber is preparing GigaChat for a super app role and will eventually add paid features

"Sber" revealed how it sees the future of "GigaChat": not just a chatbot, but a universal assistant that can take on the tasks of dozens of mobile applications. For regular users, the service will remain free for now, but in the long term, the company expects to earn money on separate features, AI agents, and the B2B direction.

Sber's Plan

According to Anton Frolov, head of the "Generative AI Development" division at Sberbank, the company wants to transform "GigaChat" into an interface for everyday actions that are currently scattered across numerous services. The idea is that users don't switch between applications, but solve everything through one assistant: from ordering food to managing payments and booking appointments with specialists. The project has no hard deadline — Sber directly says this is a long and, in a sense, endless task.

This approach fits well into the logic of a super-app, but with an adjustment for generative AI. Instead of a separate menu with dozens of buttons, "GigaChat" should become a conversational layer on top of services: the user formulates an intent in plain language, and the system itself selects the necessary scenario, transfers data, and brings the action to completion. For Sber, this is also a way to more tightly integrate its own financial infrastructure into customers' daily habits.

Which Abilities

Inside Sber, they describe the future of "GigaChat" through a set of abilities that will gradually be added to the platform. Each such ability is a specific type of action that today usually lives in a separate application. The more such modules the service receives, the closer it will be to the role of a universal assistant on a smartphone.

• Food and product orders
• Appointments with doctors or other specialists
• Transfers, payments, and financial management
• Search, booking, and ticket purchase
• Calendar planning and personal task management

A separate priority is a financial advisor for individual users and companies. Sber wants "GigaChat" to understand the client's capabilities and habits, and then offer relevant products and scenarios. But to completely replace classic applications, just having a model is not enough: you'll have to negotiate with third-party platforms about access rights, integrations, and secure data exchange. The company is already working on this, because without these permissions, the AI assistant won't be able to truly act on behalf of the user.

Where Monetization

Currently, Sber is not planning to monetize "GigaChat" directly for the mass audience. The logic is simple: first, the service must gain reach and become established as a familiar tool, and only then can paid options be enabled. Sber considers AI agents that perform actions on behalf of the user and business services as the most promising directions. This is where the company sees the greatest economic effect — both in the form of revenue and in strengthening the core banking business.

"A significant part of what people now do will be done by AI agents."

Sber's argument is quite pragmatic: if AI saves time and replaces some human work, people and companies are ready to pay. As a reference, Frolov cites expensive subscriptions from major Western players like Google and OpenAI, which cost about $200 per month and still find demand. In this logic, an AI assistant is no longer just a convenient feature, but a new layer of the services economy. If over the next few years agents take on more and more routine tasks, then the market of money, time, and user attention could indeed be redistributed.

What This Means

Sber is clearly betting not on yet another chatbot, but on a platform that should be integrated into everyday actions and, over time, become an entry point for services. If the plan works, competition will no longer be only between models, but between ecosystems that have payments, partner services, and the right to act on behalf of the user.