Whatnot Acquires Shaped to Boost Live Shopping Recommendations

Livestream shopping platform Whatnot has acquired Shaped, a machine learning company that builds real time recommendation and search systems, announced on Shaped’s website. The move will strengthen Whatnot’s recommendation and discovery features as it expands across new product categories and buyers.

Shaped’s founder and CEO Tullie Murrell, along with about a dozen engineers and researchers, will join Whatnot to create a new Applied AI Research group. Murrell previously worked at Meta and will lead the team in improving live shopping recommendations on the platform.

Shaped’s technology combines customer data with large language models and machine learning to deliver personalized search results. The company’s platform has been used by marketplaces and content businesses such as Outdoorsy and QVC.

Whatnot said the acquisition supports its goal of making product suggestions faster and more adaptive. Its systems already handle more than 500,000 hours of live video and millions of customer interactions weekly, information that it uses to refine recommendations in near real time.