In Eternal’s Q2FY27 shareholders’ letter, founder Deepinder Goyal says the narrative that AI agents will become the default commerce interface and sideline existing platforms is simplistic. Drawing a parallel with decade-old predictions about super apps, he argues vertical commerce will hold an edge in some categories. He places Blinkit and Zomato in a “low-risk zone”, suggesting they could even gain share, while District, the going-out business, faces medium-to-high risk.
His central argument is that shopping is not always a task consumers want to delegate. Eternal cites surveys showing over 65% of Zomato app opens are exploratory, with users browsing an average of 12 menus and more than 100 food images before ordering. Taking time to order, he writes, is a feature rather than a bug. Repeat orders could shift to agents, but reordered carts are only a low single-digit share of orders on Zomato and Blinkit.
Goyal says fulfilment is the moat. District’s restaurant discovery, reservations and event tickets can exist independently of the platform, while food delivery and quick commerce depend on kitchen integrations, inventory, routing and delivery. “An agent can place an order, but it cannot own the outcome,” he writes.
He also sees agents creating new demand, such as suggesting dinner when a user will be home late, and possibly cheaper customer acquisition than Google and Meta. Yet he admits Eternal may be biased: “only the paranoid survive.”
