# Shopify Agentic Commerce and AI Video IP Risks

**Podcast:** TechCrunch Daily Crunch
**Published:** 2026-03-17

## Transcript

This is TechCrunch.
This episode is brought to you by Adaptive Security, a security awareness platform built to stop AI powered social engineering.
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Gut für Berlin.
Apple kicked off the week by quietly launching the AirPods Max 2.
I'm Imran Shaking your daily Crunch for Tuesday, featuring three big tech headlines.
Starts right now.
Looks like Shopify's preparing for the transformation of a lifetime.
According to its president, Hartley Finkelstein.
Speaking at this year's Upfront Summit in Los Angeles, the longtime e-commerce veteran spoke about how the company is going all in on agentix shopping.
Shopify is the second largest e-commerce provider in the good old US of A behind Amazon.
But Finkelstein says that only about 18% of retail purchases in the U.S.
are made online.
AgenTech can change that, acting as a new front door for e-commerce sellers.
We're going to begin to use these agentic applications as these kinds of personal shoppers, he said, adding that the initial rollout will be slow.
Agentic personal shoppers are predicted to be the future of shopping in some ways, able to discover, buy, and compare products for consumers more effectively.
Finkelstein said that agents will bring context to shopping, which is not something traditional search engines do well at the moment.
He said Shopify is currently building an AI assistant for merchants called Sidekick.
It's also building an agent to handle support issues and a protocol so agents can better understand merchant data, such as product details.
Overall, he thinks AgenTix shopping will be another spoke on the retail operating machine.
We're probably more excited about this particular new era of commerce than we have ever been because we think it's just going to create so much opportunity, he said.
He continued, not just for the large merchants, but for the long tail of merchants.
White Dance has Pause plans to launch its new AI video model globally, according to a report in the information.
The Chinese company, best known as TikTok's parent organization, and now a minority shareholder in its U.S.
spin-off, launched Seed Dance 2.0 in China way back in February.
Brief videos generated by the model, including a clip featuring Tom Cruise fighting Brad Pitt soon went viral and drew intense criticism from Hollywood.
While one successful screenwriter declared that the footage meant it's likely over for us, studios quickly sent ByteDance a flurry of cease and assist letters, with Disney lawyers accusing the company of a virtual smash and grab of Disney's IP.
ByteDance responded by promising to introduce stronger safeguards for intellectual property.
The company had planned to make SeedDance 2.0 available globally in mid-March, the information said, but it's delaying those plans as its engineers and lawyers work to avert further legal issues.
ByteDance did not immediately respond to TechCrunch's request for comment.
$549 and feature active noise cancellation, Apple's audio-specific H2 chip, support for live translation, better sound quality, and more.
The headphones will be available for pre-order starting March 25th in midnight, Starlight, orange, purple, and blue colors, and will be available early next month.
Apple says the new headphones' active noise cancellation is up to one and a half times more effective than their predecessor.
And the adaptive audio feature lets the headphones automatically adjust the levels of ANC and transparency based on the user's surroundings to optimize the listening experience.
The company says transparency mode is now more natural thanks to a new digital signal processing algorithm optimized for the H2 chip and the AirPods Max Microphone Array, so users can stay aware of their surroundings and the people around them.
The headphones come with a live translation, which helps users communicate across languages in person.
They also feature voice isolation, which uses advanced computational audio to prioritize your voice during calls and block out ambient noise.
The headphones also support camera remote, a feature that lets you trigger the iPhone or iPad's camera shutter from a distance.
On the Max 2, you press the digital crown to take a photo or start and stop video recording in the camera app or compatible third-party camera apps on iPhone or iPad.
Apple says the headphones mic allows interviewers, podcasters, singers, and other creators to capture content with higher quality audio and more natural voice texture.
The AirPods Max 2 will be available in more than 30 countries and regions.
Now to the latest in startup business news, all in about one minute with our friend producer Dennis.
Imran, thank you.
And let's begin with eight-year-old semiconductor startup Froor Systems.
The company has raised a $143 million Series D and has now raised $340 million total.
Froor doesn't make the chips themselves, it makes liquid cooling systems for them.
Founded by two former Qualcomm engineers, the company's tech was initially created to offer air cooling tech for phones and other small fanless electronics.
And Fuse announced that it has raised a $25 million Series A round.com.
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