What: Zalando launched Zalando Extended, an AI-agent shopping platform, on the day it reported third-quarter gross margin of 38.7%, below analyst expectations, and its shares fell 5% in early trading.

Why it is important: Zalando is taking the opposite path to Walmart and Amazon on agents: it routes shoppers to other retailers' products inside its own app, where Walmart opens its systems to outside assistants and Amazon blocks them.

Zalando, Europe's top online fashion retailer, launched its first AI shopping agent on Tuesday as concerns grow that artificial intelligence could disrupt online retail. Zalando Extended will let users buy products from other online shops through AI agents in the Zalando app, with a pilot run with home retailer Westwing.

The launch came with third-quarter results. Gross margin missed expectations partly because of investments, according to Jefferies and JPMorgan analysts. JPMorgan said the stock could drift lower given the lack of incremental positives and the structural risk from agentic commerce, in which autonomous agents handle the full purchase cycle from price comparison to payment.

Revenues grew 5.1% year-on-year to €3.17 billion ($3.55 billion), above the €3.15 billion expected by analysts polled by LSEG. Gross merchandise value rose 7.5% to €4.54 billion. Finance chief Anna Dimitrova said the shift to a platform model is accelerating, with the partner business and retail media growing at a double-digit rate and B2B revenue up almost 28%.

IADS Notes: Zalando places an AI agent inside its own app to buy from other online shops, whereas Walmart has opened its systems to external assistants such as ChatGPT and Gemini while keeping shopper authorization and payment data in-house, after suspending a ChatGPT Instant Checkout test in which conversion came in roughly three times lower than on its own site (Reuters, October 2026). The wider market is divided on the same question, with large etailers blocking agents to protect customer relationships, advertising revenue and returns exposure, while consumers use AI mostly between discovery and checkout rather than at the point of purchase (a16z, October 2026). Payment routing carries its own stakes: when a wallet pays with its own virtual card, the retailer loses sight of the customer, the card's rewards and the chance to sell a membership (an a16z analysis of agent wallets, October 2026). Zalando's platform shift builds on its standing in European fashion, where vertical marketplaces are major players that raise the bar for brands' own sites as margin pressure builds (Journal du Net, October 2026), and on a logistics business that already lets partners such as Marks & Spencer cut delivery costs by up to 58% through its ZEOS platform (Retail Week, August 2026).

Zalando launches AI shopping agent after third-quarter margin miss