Whatnot buys Shaped to solve live commerce's real-time recommendation problem
whatnot acquired shaped to integrate llms into its search and discovery engines. this tackles the critical challenge of matching live inventory with shifting buyer intent.
whatnot acquired shaped, a startup building ai-powered recommendation systems using customer data and large language models, to enhance its real-time search capabilities. shaped's founder tullie murrell and nearly a dozen engineers will join whatnot to lead the newly formed applied ai research group. this move addresses the specific complexity of live commerce, where inventory volatility and buyer intent require recommendation speeds faster than traditional e-commerce. the company processes over 500,000 hours of live video weekly and aims to push recommendation latency from minutes down to real time.