Zalando is turning to artificial intelligence and robotics to tackle one of the most demanding parts of its massive European logistics operation: processing the millions of fashion items customers send back to the retailer.

The German fashion e-commerce giant has begun using AI-powered robotic systems from Sereact to handle returned merchandise at logistics facilities operated by Ceva Logistics in Greven, Germany and Świebodzin, Poland.

The dual-arm robots use Sereact’s physical AI platform Cortex to identify, grasp and sort returned fashion items without requiring individual training for each product or a predetermined list of SKUs.

The systems are now operating in live production, with Zalando, Ceva and Sereact describing the deployments as the first phase of a broader effort to automate returns across Europe. The robots are being deployed through a robotics-as-a-service model.

For Zalando, the project adds another piece to an increasingly automated logistics network and addresses what is historically a difficult problem for conventional warehouse robotics. Unlike outbound fulfillment, where products generally arrive in predictable configurations and are picked from known inventory locations, returns can arrive in almost any condition.

The Sereact project is designed to be more adaptable to these upredictable environments, with the Cortex platform enabling the robots to recognize and manipulate objects they have not encountered previously. Rather than relying on article-specific programming, the system uses AI to dynamically identify the items, allowing the robots to deal with the variability inherent in returned merchandise.

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