Zip Forward Europe 2026 recap: Agents of Change in London

On a beautiful London day at 22 Bishopsgate, procurement and finance leaders from across EMEA gathered for Zip Forward Europe 2026 for a day exploring our theme Agents of Change. 

The day brought together customers, partners, and industry experts for a packed agenda of product unveilings, customer stories, hands-on workshops, and an unforgettable closing keynote all centered on the rapid shift from experimental AI to essential AI in procurement.

Here's everything that went down in London.

The opening keynote: Agents of Change

Zip co-founder and CEO Rujul Zaparde kicked off the day with a keynote laying out Zip's vision for an orchestrated world, one in which AI agents handle the work procurement was never meant to do in the first place, freeing teams to focus on strategic impact.

"We're living through a transformational moment, where AI agents have gone from experimental to essential in our workflows," said Rujul Zaparde.

The keynote walked the audience through Zip's full AI vision across three core pillars:

• AI for Intake: including advanced budgets, AI localisation, and the new ability to chat directly with requests
• AI for Contracting: headlined by the launch of AI Contract Orchestration, the announcement that had the whole room buzzing
• AI for P2P: featuring new P2P agents, Sovos-powered e-invoicing, and advanced AI analytics

Rujul was joined on stage by two customers whose stories grounded the vision in real-world transformation: Davinia Yanes, Head of Procurement at N26, and Laura Cook, Director of Procurement at Primark. Their bold presentations offered a preview of what agentic procurement looks like in practice at two of Europe's most recognised brands.

Three tracks, three rooms full of procurement possibilities

After the opening keynote, attendees split into three parallel tracks designed to meet leaders wherever they were on their AI journey:

Executive Summit: Assessing Implementation Readiness Drawing on expertise from Zip's Enterprise Transformation Office and leaders from Invesco, this session explored the art of the possible in AI procurement transformation, and what it takes to actually operationalise it.

Design an AI Agent A hands-on favorite of the day. Attendees rolled up their sleeves and designed their own AI agents under the guidance of Zip's product and design experts. Happy hour conversations confirmed this was a favorite of the day.

Maximise the Value of Zip A roundtable where Zip customers led the conversation, sharing their own use cases, best practices, and the creative ways they're putting the platform to work.

Procurement transformation is business transformation: The Primark story

One of the most anticipated sessions of the day came from Laura Cook, Director of Procurement at Primark, one of EMEA's most iconic e-commerce and retail brands. Laura walked the audience through how her procurement function got ahead of rapid AI acceleration, increasing global regulations, and ambitious business growth by reframing the conversation entirely.

Her core message: procurement leaders need to stop short-selling procurement.

"Sell your story in language that the business understands. Remember this is not about functional change. The work we do is bigger than procurement." - Laura Cook, Director of Procurement, Primark

Laura's practical playbook for winning over tough stakeholders, and her candid reflections on what worked and what didn't, made this a session people kept referencing long after the applause died down. It's going to resonate across the continent over the next year.

The afternoon: Workshops, roadmaps, and regulatory reality

The rest of the afternoon leaned into the tactical work of making AI procurement real.

Optimising intake-to-pay workflows A hands-on customer workshop packed with tips, tricks, and practical strategies for automating the intake-to-pay lifecycle.

The future of finance with Sovos An expert-led session where Zip and Sovos unpacked how regulations like ViDA are fundamentally changing finance operations, making tax compliance and invoicing real-time, not retroactive. The takeaway: Zip's orchestration plus Sovos's regulatory expertise turns complexity into seamless, automated finance operations.

Identifying AI use cases with PwC One of the most talked-about sessions at happy hour. PwC shared key insights from their global CEO survey alongside their perspective on how agentic AI is reshaping the source-to-pay lifecycle. Attendees left with a clearer framework for prioritising their own AI opportunities.

The Zip product roadmap A look at Zip's latest releases and what's coming next across intake and orchestration, AI contract orchestration, risk orchestration, and P2P.

‘Rulesbreakers vs. Robots’ with Sam Conniff

Closing out the day was an exhilarating talk from Sam Conniff, best-selling author of Be More Pirate and one of Europe's most compelling voices on social entrepreneurship and rule-breaking. Sam lit the stage on fire with a rousing speech on rule breakers versus robots, a message that felt especially prescient in an age of AI transformation and intelligent automation.

It was the perfect note to end the day on: a reminder that the leaders who shape the future of procurement will be the ones willing to break a few rules along the way.

Thank you to our partners

Zip Forward Europe wouldn't have been possible without our incredible partners: 4C Associates, Accelerated, Deloitte, KPMG, The Hackett Group, Navan, and PwC. Thank you for helping us bring the EMEA community together!

See you next year

From the keynote announcements to the hands-on workshops to the conversations that spilled into the Zip Community happy hour, Zip Forward Europe 2026 was a celebration of a community of procurement and finance leaders who are ready to lead the era of AI for procurement.

We can't wait to do it again next year.

Want to see what Zip can do for your procurement function? Request a demo today.