Whatnot acquires AI firm Shaped to enhance shopping recommendations

Livestream shopping app Whatnot announced Wednesday it has acquired Shaped, a machine learning company focused on real-time recommendation and search systems. The acquisition is intended to strengthen Whatnot's discovery and personalization capabilities as the platform expands into new product categories.

The company stated the acquisition supports Whatnot's continued investment in artificial intelligence to address a key challenge in live commerce: helping shoppers find the right products in a dynamic environment where inventory, auctions, and buyer demand fluctuate in real time.

Unlike traditional e-commerce platforms with relatively static product catalogs, Whatnot's marketplace is constantly evolving. Live auctions can conclude within minutes or extend for hours.

"By combining Shaped’s technology with Whatnot’s existing systems, we can make recommendations faster, more responsive, and more personalized," said Emmanuel Fuentes, VP, Data and AI at Whatnot. "That speed matters because live commerce is a uniquely hard recommendation problem. Inventory changes by the second, shows start and end continuously, and buyer intent shifts throughout a show."

Fuentes indicated that the company has spent six years improving its recommendation engine's speed, reducing latency from approximately a day to mere minutes. Integrating Shaped's technology is expected to bring recommendations even closer to real time. Shaped, founded to help businesses build AI-powered recommendation systems, combines existing customer data with large language models and machine learning. As part of the acquisition, Shaped founder and CEO Tullie Murrell, along with nearly a dozen engineers and AI researchers, will join Whatnot.