Codes of Culture | Issue 92
Zalando’s AI margins, Quince’s $10B milestone, and the rise of agentic creative workflows.
Welcome back to Codes of Culture. I’m Ashumi Sanghvi.
When I curate the news every week, I always look for patterns and the same red threads across industries. To find the signals in the noise. In the future, on Wednesdays, we will share macro stories on geopolitics, AI, robotics, space, and capital markets. On Fridays, we will focus on soft power industries, cultural trends, experiential, luxury, fashion, and, always, technology.
In this issue, Zalando is showing public markets what it looks like when AI moves from experiment to margin engine. At the same time, Quince’s valuation reflects investor conviction that the operating layer in retail now commands the premium. John Lewis, Picsart, and Sephora each make the same broader point in different ways: the next advantage lies in infrastructure, interface, and context, not only in brand.
We also have some news to share as we evolve Future+ and the Codes of Culture platform. Stay tuned for exciting announcements about our podcast (currently in development) and our 4th annual Codes of Culture summit coming to London this fall.
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📖In this issue:
Zalando turned AI into a profit line.
Quince raised at a $10 billion valuation.
John Lewis is repositioning inside AI platforms and TikTok Shop.
Picsart launched an agent marketplace.
Sephora became F1 Academy’s official beauty partner.
Zalando turned AI into a profit line.
What’s happening: Zalando’s results announcement sent shares up sharply in a single session, with AI cited explicitly as the driver across marketing, logistics, and personalisation. The company scaled AI-generated content from near zero to 90% of total marketing output in a single year, at the same cost, with 70% more volume. Its size-and-fit AI reduced returns. Its SCAYLE software unit signed Levi’s to run its global e-commerce. And Zalando is now positioning its products to be discoverable and purchasable directly through Google Gemini, placing itself between fashion inventory and AI-native search.
TLDR:
AI-generated content went from near zero to 90% of total marketing output in a year, at comparable cost. The efficiency shift is structural, not incremental.
Size-and-fit AI reduced size-related returns. Returns are one of fashion e-commerce’s highest operational costs. This is a direct margin story.
Levi’s signs with SCAYLE to run its worldwide e-commerce. Zalando is building a B2B operating system for fashion retail, not only a consumer platform.
Zalando products will be discoverable and purchasable through Gemini. The platform is positioned between fashion inventory and AI-native search.
The scale at which AI is compounding inside Zalando is now large enough to move public markets.
Why it matters: Zalando’s results are the clearest public-market proof yet that AI in fashion commerce is a profit engine, not a cost centre. The more consequential question is structural: as Zalando positions itself as the operating system for European fashion e-commerce, the brands building on that infrastructure are placing a dependency. Understanding where the leverage lies and where the data accumulates is now a strategic question for every brand with exposure to Zalando.
Quince raised at a $10 billion valuation.
What’s happening: Quince closed a $500 million Series E led by ICONIQ, with Wellington Management, DST Global, Ballie Gifford, and others participating, more than doubling its valuation from the prior round less than a year earlier. Quince’s manufacturer-to-consumer model removes traditional retail intermediaries by partnering directly with specialist manufacturers and using AI-driven demand forecasting to align supply with customer demand before production begins. The company has surpassed $1 billion in revenue and has maintained triple-digit growth since launching from beta in 2020.
TLDR:
The valuation more than doubled from the prior round in under a year. Capital is pricing the operating system, not the cashmere sweater.
The manufacturer-to-consumer model removes every layer of traditional retail markup. Quince aligns supply with demand at the production stage, not the markdown stage.
ICONIQ, Wellington, DST Global, and Ballie Gifford in the round. Long-horizon, multi-asset-class conviction.
Design litigation from several legacy brands is live. The structural advantage is real; the IP questions are unresolved.
Revenue has crossed $1 billion. Quince is a category-defining platform, not a DTC experiment.
Why it matters: The Quince round is worth reading as a signal of where investors now believe durable margins live in fashion retail. Not in brand premium alone. In the system. The organisations that control the operating layer, rather than only the product, are where value is accumulating. That thesis runs through every story in this issue.
John Lewis is repositioning inside AI platforms and TikTok Shop.
What’s happening: John Lewis announced a significant investment in AI-powered shopping as part of its multi-year transformation programme, with the stated ambition of being among the first UK retailers to fully integrate the technology. The plan places John Lewis products inside AI discovery interfaces, including ChatGPT and Google Gemini, with checkout to follow. On the same day, the retailer launched a 90-day TikTok Shop pilot focused on beauty and gifting. It has extended its partnership with commercetools, an AI-first digital commerce platform, to build the infrastructure required for AI-native checkout. On-demand delivery through Uber Eats is expanding to additional UK cities.
TLDR:
John Lewis products inside ChatGPT and Gemini, with checkout capability to follow. Discovery is migrating from the retailer’s owned environment to the AI interface.
A 90-day TikTok Shop pilot, beauty and gifting focus, instant purchase in-platform. A channel test, not a brand moment.
The multi-year transformation programme is the structural context. The TikTok and AI investments are the declared direction.
Commercetools extended partnership provides the technical infrastructure for AI-native commerce. The plumbing is being built now, not after launch.
On-demand delivery via Uber Eats is expanding. Immediacy is the third axis of the omnichannel repositioning.
Why it matters: John Lewis carries institutional weight precisely because it is not a fast mover. When a 162-year-old retailer declares that the AI interface is a primary discovery channel, the direction is set. The question for retail and brand operators with UK consumer exposure is not whether product discovery will migrate to AI platforms. It is how quickly your inventory is structured to be discoverable, recommended, and purchasable there. Data architecture is the new front door.
Picsart launched an agent marketplace.
What’s happening: Picsart launched an AI agent marketplace allowing creators to assign specialised assistants to production tasks, including social content resizing, visual remixing, and Shopify product photo editing. Agents operate asynchronously, building plans from data before executing on creator approval, with autonomy levels that creators can calibrate. The launch includes four agents, with new ones added weekly. The Flair agent integrates directly with Shopify, analyses store data, and will eventually run A/B tests autonomously. Agents are accessible via WhatsApp and Telegram, as well as on the platform itself, to a user base of over 130 million people.
TLDR:
Agents that plan, propose, and execute with creator approval—a workflow partner operating between creative briefs, not a feature inside an existing tool.
Flair integrates with Shopify and reads store data to surface commercial recommendations. The line between a creative tool and a commerce assistant is blurring.
Autonomy levels allow creators to calibrate how much the agent acts before human sign-off. The consent architecture is part of the product.
WhatsApp and Telegram integration means the agent lives in the creator’s existing communication stack. Adoption friction is minimal by design.
Agentic creative workflow is arriving at consumer scale, not just at enterprise scale.
Why it matters: For creative directors, brand operators, and luxury comms teams tracking this, the production layer of creative work is being automated at the task level. What remains human is the brief, the judgment, and the direction. The workflow has already changed.
Sephora became F1 Academy’s official beauty partner.
What’s happening: Sephora has been named the official beauty retail partner of F1 Academy, the female-focused Formula One championship. The partnership spans the full 2026 racing season, with Sephora operating glam bars in the Paddock Club at selected Grand Prix events. New F1 Academy driver Natalia Granada will compete in a Prema car carrying Sephora livery, and Sephora will sponsor a new end-of-year drivers’ celebration. The LVMH-owned retailer follows Charlotte Tilbury and Wella into F1 Academy partnerships, while LVMH itself is two years into a long-term deal with the main Formula 1 championship.
TLDR:
Glam bars in the Paddock Club across the 2026 season. Sephora is building a physical brand experience inside one of the world’s most globally distributed live event formats.
Natalia Granada races in Sephora livery. The brand is embedded at the competitive level, not at the hospitality level.
LVMH holds a long-term main F1 partnership alongside the Sephora F1 Academy deal. The motorsport positioning is a group strategy.
Charlotte Tilbury, Wella, Sephora. F1 Academy is becoming a meaningful axis for the positioning of beauty brands around women’s sport.
The partnership frames beauty alongside confidence, ambition, and global visibility, deliberately repositioning the category beyond aesthetics.
Why it matters: Women’s sport is delivering the cultural alignment that traditional luxury advertising has struggled to manufacture. The audience is global, the earned media is real, and the values association resonates with the next generation of luxury consumers. The question is not whether beauty belongs in sport. It is the brands that arrive with enough credibility to own the positioning before the category becomes crowded.