Credit: © SUMALI IBNU CHAMID via Canva.com Parloa co-founder and chief executive Malte Kosub said Zalando will use the Berlin company’s AI for customer conversations across Europe, though neither company has published an announcement and Zalando has not commented. Article 50 of the AI Act, applicable since 2 August, puts the duty to disclose that a user is talking to an AI on the provider rather than the retailer. Zalando will use the Berlin company Parloa’s AI for customer conversations across Europe, co-founder and chief executive Malte Kosub said in a post on Monday. Neither company has published an announcement.
Zalando has not commented. That is one half of a deal. Kosub gave no scope, no markets, no timetable and no indication of whether anything is running yet. Parloa raised $350M in January at a $3B valuation, on $50M of annual recurring revenue and 150% net revenue retention, taking total capital past $560M.
Zalando is a large place to land. It counted 62 million active customers across 29 markets and more than 7,000 brands when it launched its own AI assistant in November 2023, co-created with customers rather than bought in, who rated its suggestions with a thumbs up or down. Whether Parloa replaces that assistant, sits beside it or takes the phones is unanswered. The timing is the part that matters.
Article 50 of the AI Act became applicable on 2 August. It requires that systems built to interact directly with people are designed so those people are informed they are dealing with an AI, and the duty sits with the provider rather than the shop. European retail has been arguing about that article. The sector asked Brussels in June to exempt AI-generated advertising from the same article’s labelling rules, calling the burden disproportionate to the risk.
Breaching it runs to EUR 15M or 3% of global turnover. The Commission published a voluntary code of practice the same month. Parloa is European. Its stack is not.
The platform runs on Microsoft Azure and uses OpenAI models, and its named customers so far are Allianz, Booking.com and HealthEquity. SAP has invested in the company and built it into its Service Cloud. A German retailer choosing a German vendor still routes the conversation through American infrastructure. That is the question worth putting to both.
Zalando’s customers will be talking about orders, returns and refunds, in 29 markets and as many languages. Who processes that, where it is processed and on what legal basis is not in a post on a social network. It is in a contract neither company has described.
