- Deepinder Goyal stated AI chat interfaces are not yet disrupting food delivery or quick commerce platforms
- He cited consumer habits and transaction complexity as reasons general AI can't replace specialised apps
- Goyal emphasized brand recall, with users associating hunger with Zomato and groceries with Blinkit
Deepinder Goyal has pushed back against rising concerns that artificial intelligence (AI) chat interfaces could disrupt food delivery and quick commerce platforms, asserting that such technologies are “nowhere close” to affecting Eternal's business. Goyal addressed speculation that AI assistants could emerge as the “new front door for commerce,” diverting demand away from established apps. Drawing parallels with past attempts by Google to integrate transactions into its ecosystem, he argued that history suggests otherwise.
Despite Google's massive scale and distribution advantage through products like Flights, Hotels, Shopping, and Maps-based ordering, vertical platforms such as Amazon and travel-focused apps continued to thrive, he said in a detailed letter to shareholders accompanying the company's fourth quarter results. According to Goyal, the reason lies in consumer behaviour and the complexity of high-frequency transactions.
“General-purpose interfaces are good for general-purpose queries but poor for complex, habitual transactions,” he said, noting that ordering food involves browsing menus, comparing options, tracking deliveries, and making real-time decisions, functions that are not easily replicated through chat interfaces.
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He emphasised that entrenched consumer habits are difficult to disrupt. Frequent users of Zomato and Blinkit are unlikely to shift their behaviour to conversational AI platforms anytime soon. “When someone is hungry, they think Zomato. When they need groceries quickly, they think Blinkit,” he noted, highlighting the importance of brand recall and mental association.
Goyal also underscored the company's strategy of building distinct brands, such as Zomato, Blinkit, and District, rather than a single super app, ensuring each serves a specific consumer need. This “mental real estate,” built over years, is not easily displaced by new interfaces.
Beyond user behaviour, Goyal pointed to the physical nature of Eternal's operations as a key competitive moat. “AI will not move food through traffic, stock shelves in dark stores, or manage large events,” he said, arguing that real-world logistics and infrastructure remain difficult to replicate through software alone.
However, he acknowledged that AI remains a transformative force, and one that Eternal is actively leveraging. The company already uses AI extensively across demand prediction, route optimisation, supply chain management, fraud detection, and customer experience, trained on billions of real-world interactions.
More importantly, Goyal framed AI as a growth enabler rather than just a cost-saving tool. From improving discovery for customers through natural language interfaces to simplifying onboarding for delivery partners and providing scalable business insights to restaurant partners, AI is helping expand market participation.
Eternal, which processed over $10 billion in annual transactions across its platforms in fiscal year 2026, now expects to double that figure to $20 billion in under two years. The company is also targeting $1 billion in adjusted EBITDA by FY29.
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