Yami Gautam is an Indian film actress and model who predominantly appears in Hindi films. She has also appeared in a few Telugu, Kannada, Punjabi, Malayalam and Tamil films. In addition to acting, she is a prominent celebrity endorser for brands and products.

In 2012, Gautam made her Bollywood debut with the film Vicky Donor. Upon release, the film was a critical and commercial success, and Gautam gained positive reviews and several nominations for her performance.

Yami Gautam was born in a Hindu family in Bilaspur, Himachal Pradesh and was brought up in Chandigarh. Her father Mukesh Gautam is a Punjabi film director. Her mother is Anjali Gautam. Yami has a younger sister Surilie Gautam, who made her big screen debut with the Punjabi film Power Cut. She did her regular schooling, and later entered college to pursue a graduate degree in law honours. She had aspired to join Indian Administrative Services (IAS) as a young girl, but at the age of 20, Yami decided to start her acting career. Though she was pursuing studies in Law Honors (first-year PU Student of law), she left full-time studies for acting. Recently, she has been doing her part-time graduation from Mumbai. Yami is fond of reading, interior decoration and listening to music.

Gautam was twenty when she moved to Mumbai to pursue a career in movies. She made her television debut with Chand Ke Paar Chalo, which was followed by Raajkumar Aaryyan. Following this, she played her most notable role in Yeh Pyar Na Hoga Kam, which aired on Colors. Furthermore, she participated in the reality shows Meethi Choori No 1 and Kitchen Champion Season 1.

After making her Kannada debut, Gautam made her Bollywood debut with a leading role in Shoojit Sircar's romantic comedy-drama Vicky Donor (2012). Co-starring opposite Ayushmann Khurrana and Annu Kapoor, she portrayed Ashima Roy, a Bengali woman who falls in love with a Punjabi (Khurrana) and gets to know about his past after marriage. The film, which marked Bollywood actor John Abraham's production debut, received positive reviews from critics and proved to be a major commercial success and one of the highest-grossing films of the year with worldwide grossing of ₹645 million (US$3.9 million). For her debut performance, Gautam received critical appraisal as well as several awards and nominations, including the Best Female Debut (tied with Ileana D'Cruz for Barfi!) trophy at the Zee Cine Awards, and a nomination under the same category at the 58th Filmfare Awards.

After a two-year absence from Bollywood films, Gautam returned in 2014 and appeared in two films, the first of which was Eeshwar Nivas's romantic comedy film Total Siyappa, co-starring Ali Zafar, Anupam Kher, and Kirron Kher, in which she played the love interest of Zafar's character. Gautam's second Bollywood release that year was Prabhu Deva's action thriller Action Jackson, in which Ajay Devgn portrayed a dual role, while she and Sonakshi Sinha featured as the love interests of his characters. Both Total Siyappa and Action Jackson under-performed at the box office.

In 2015, Gautam appeared alongside Varun Dhawan and Nawazuddin Siddiqui in Sriram Raghavan's action thriller Badlapur. The film, which focuses on the story of a man (Raghu, played by Dhawan) who over the course of 15 years avenges the murder of his wife (Misha, played by her) and son, emerged as a critical and commercial success, collecting ₹770 million (US$11 million) worldwide despite earning negative reviews. Gautam's performance was praised.

In 2016, Gautam played Pulkit Samrat's love interest in two romances–Divya Khosla Kumar's Sanam Re and Vivek Agnihotri's Junooniyat. In the former, she played a high-school girl who falls in love with Samrat's character, and in the latter, she portrayed a Punjabi girl who falls in love with an army officer (Samrat). Both Sanam Re and Junooniyat were commercial failures.

The following year, Gautam collaborated with Hrithik Roshan on Sanjay Gupta's revengeful romantic thriller Kaabil (2017), which tells the story of a blind man who avenges the rape of his blind wife. The film, as well as her performance, received mixed reviews and the film emerged as financial success, earning ₹1.96 billion (US$28 million) worldwide. Later in 2017, Gautam featured briefly in Ram Gopal Varma's political thriller Sarkar 3, the third installment of Varma's Sarkar franchise, alongside Amitabh Bachchan, Jackie Shroff, Manoj Bajpayee, and Amit Sadh. Sarkar 3 failed to do well at the box office. Gautam's next release was the Shree Narayan Singh directed-social problem dramedy Batti Gul Meter Chalu (2018), in which she played a lawyer alongside Shahid Kapoor, Shraddha Kapoor, and Divyendu Sharma. The film was also unsuccessful at the box office.

Gautam's greatest success came in 2019 when she appeared in Aditya Dhar's military action thriller film Uri: The Surgical Strike, alongside Vicky Kaushal, Paresh Rawal, Mohit Raina, and Kirti Kulhari. Based on the 2016 Uri attack, Gautam portrayed Pallavi Sharma, a nurse-turned-an intelligence officer. Upon release, the film received mixed reviews and emerged as one of the highest-grossing Indian films of all time, grossing over ₹3.36 billion (US$54 million) worldwide. Her performance was critically praised.

As of September 2019, Gautam has two upcoming films. In first she is reuniting with Ayushmann Khurrana in Amar Kaushik's comedy-drama Bala, a satire on physical attractiveness, which is scheduled for release on 7 November 2019. The second film is Ginny Weds Sunny opposite Vikrant Massey directed by debutant Puneet Khanna and produced by Vinod Bachchan.

Her brand endorsements include Fair & Lovely, Cornetto, Samsung Mobile, Chevrolet, and many other brands.