{"id":3490941,"date":"2026-07-15T17:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/techingeek.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/15\/whatnot-purchases-shaped-to-enhance-live-shopping-suggestions-in-real-time\/"},"modified":"2026-07-15T17:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T17:00:00","slug":"whatnot-purchases-shaped-to-enhance-live-shopping-suggestions-in-real-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/techingeek.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/15\/whatnot-purchases-shaped-to-enhance-live-shopping-suggestions-in-real-time\/","title":{"rendered":"Whatnot purchases Shaped to enhance live shopping suggestions in real-time"},"content":{"rendered":"
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On Wednesday, the livestream shopping application Whatnot declared that it has purchased Shaped, a company focused on machine learning that excels in real-time recommendation and search technologies. This acquisition aims to enhance Whatnot\u2019s capabilities in discovery and personalization as it continues to grow into new product sectors and reach millions of consumers.<\/p>\n

The company states that this acquisition supports Whatnot’s ongoing investment in AI, targeting one of the primary challenges in live commerce: assisting shoppers in locating the right products as inventory, auctions, and buyer demand fluctuate instantaneously.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In contrast to conventional e-commerce platforms, where product catalogs tend to be relatively stable, Whatnot\u2019s marketplace is in perpetual flux, with live auctions that can conclude within moments or extend for hours.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy merging Shaped\u2019s technology with Whatnot\u2019s current systems, we can provide recommendations quicker, more adaptively, and with greater personalization,\u201d stated Emmanuel Fuentes, VP of Data and AI at Whatnot, to TechCrunch. \u201cThat immediacy is crucial because live commerce presents an exceptionally challenging recommendation scenario. Inventory fluctuates continuously, shows initiate and conclude regularly, and buyer intentions vary throughout a broadcast.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fuentes mentioned that the company has invested the last six years enhancing its recommendation engine’s speed, trimming recommendation latency from approximately a day to mere minutes. The integration of Shaped\u2019s technology is anticipated to bring those recommendations even closer to real-time. The firm indicates its systems manage upwards of 500,000 hours of live video and millions of real-time interactions each week, leveraging that information to perpetually refine recommendations.<\/p>\n

Founded to assist businesses in creating AI-enhanced recommendation systems, Shaped devised technology that merges existing customer data with expansive language models and machine learning to offer exceptionally personalized search and discovery experiences. Its clientele included firms such as Outdoorsy and QVC.<\/p>\n

As part of the acquisition, Shaped’s founder and CEO Tullie Murrell, along with nearly ten engineers and AI researchers, will transition to Whatnot. Murrell will direct the newly established Applied AI Research group. (It\u2019s noteworthy that Murrell was previously employed at Meta before founding Shaped.)<\/p>\n

This acquisition occurs amid Whatnot’s notable expansion. Since its launch in 2019, the company has disclosed that sellers have exceeded 1 billion orders. Last year, Whatnot secured $225 million in Series F funding, resulting in a valuation exceeding $11 billion after onboarding 20 million buyers in the past year.<\/p>\n

Whatnot has also extensively expanded its marketplace, introducing more than 35 new categories last year \u2014 including art, golf, and vinyl \u2014 and adding over 45 additional categories in the first half of 2026, with new subcategories continuing to be introduced each month.<\/p>\n

Moreover, this development arrives as resale giants strive to embed AI throughout their platforms, including eBay and Poshmark.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This story has been revised to rectify dates that mistakenly referenced the first half of 2025. The accurate time frame is the first half of 2026<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

When you make purchases through the links in our articles, we may receive a small commission. This does not influence our editorial autonomy.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

<\/div>\n
\n

On Wednesday, the livestream shopping application Whatnot declared that it has purchased Shaped, a company focused on machine learning that excels in real-time recommendation and search technologies. This acquisition aims to enhance Whatnot\u2019s capabilities in discovery and personalization as it continues to grow into new product sectors and reach millions of consumers.<\/p>\n

The company states that this acquisition supports Whatnot’s ongoing investment in AI, targeting one of the primary challenges in live commerce: assisting shoppers in locating the right products as inventory, auctions, and buyer demand fluctuate instantaneously.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In contrast to conventional e-commerce platforms, where product catalogs tend to be relatively stable, Whatnot\u2019s marketplace is in perpetual flux, with live auctions that can conclude within moments or extend for hours.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy merging Shaped\u2019s technology with Whatnot\u2019s current systems, we can provide recommendations quicker, more adaptively, and with greater personalization,\u201d stated Emmanuel Fuentes, VP of Data and AI at Whatnot, to TechCrunch. \u201cThat immediacy is crucial because live commerce presents an exceptionally challenging recommendation scenario. Inventory fluctuates continuously, shows initiate and conclude regularly, and buyer intentions vary throughout a broadcast.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fuentes mentioned that the company has invested the last six years enhancing its recommendation engine’s speed, trimming recommendation latency from approximately a day to mere minutes. The integration of Shaped\u2019s technology is anticipated to bring those recommendations even closer to real-time. The firm indicates its systems manage upwards of 500,000 hours of live video and millions of real-time interactions each week, leveraging that information to perpetually refine recommendations.<\/p>\n

Founded to assist businesses in creating AI-enhanced recommendation systems, Shaped devised technology that merges existing customer data with expansive language models and machine learning to offer exceptionally personalized search and discovery experiences. Its clientele included firms such as Outdoorsy and QVC.<\/p>\n

As part of the acquisition, Shaped’s founder and CEO Tullie Murrell, along with nearly ten engineers and AI researchers, will transition to Whatnot. Murrell will direct the newly established Applied AI Research group. (It\u2019s noteworthy that Murrell was previously employed at Meta before founding Shaped.)<\/p>\n

This acquisition occurs amid Whatnot’s notable expansion. Since its launch in 2019, the company has disclosed that sellers have exceeded 1 billion orders. Last year, Whatnot secured $225 million in Series F funding, resulting in a valuation exceeding $11 billion after onboarding 20 million buyers in the past year.<\/p>\n

Whatnot has also extensively expanded its marketplace, introducing more than 35 new categories last year \u2014 including art, golf, and vinyl \u2014 and adding over 45 additional categories in the first half of 2026, with new subcategories continuing to be introduced each month.<\/p>\n

Moreover, this development arrives as resale giants strive to embed AI throughout their platforms, including eBay and Poshmark.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This story has been revised to rectify dates that mistakenly referenced the first half of 2025. The accurate time frame is the first half of 2026<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

When you make purchases through the links in our articles, we may receive a small commission. This does not influence our editorial autonomy.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3490942,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"Default","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3490941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/techingeek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3490941"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/techingeek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/techingeek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techingeek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techingeek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3490941"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/techingeek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3490941\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techingeek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3490942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/techingeek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3490941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techingeek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3490941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/techingeek.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3490941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}