# AI Verification, Meta's Business AI, and Vertical Video Strategy

**Podcast:** TechCrunch Daily Crunch
**Published:** 2026-05-01

## Transcript

This is TechCrunch.
This is not the future we were promised.
Like, how about that for a tagline for the show?
From the BBC, this is The Interface, the show that explores how tech is rewiring your week and your world.
This isn't about quarterly earnings or about tech reviews.
It's about what technology is actually doing to your work and your politics, your everyday life.
And all the bizarre ways people are using the internet.
Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.
Uncle Netflix wants you to watch its new TikTok-like vertical video feed.
I'm Imran Shaikh and your Daily Crunch for Friday featuring three big tech headlines starts right now.
As AI-generated artists and tracks flood music streaming platforms, Spotify is rolling out a new verified by Spotify badge to help listeners more easily identify authentic human artists.
Now to receive the badge, artists must meet certain criteria.
Spotify looks for an identifiable artist presence both on and off platform, like concert dates, merch, and linked social accounts on their artist profile.
Profiles that primarily represent AI-generated music or AI persona artists are...
are not eligible for verification.
Additionally, artists must have consistent listener activity and engagement over time.
Spotify is focusing on artist profiles that people are actively seeking out over a sustained period of time, rather than those who are experiencing one-time spikes in engagement.
At launch, more than 99% of artists that listeners actively search for will be verified.
Most are independent, representing a broad mix of genres, career stages, and regions, Spotify says.
Users will start to see the new badges appear on artist profiles and next to artist names in search results over the coming weeks.
The badges will feature verified by Spotify text alongside a green checkmark.
Given the vast number of profiles on the platform, Spotify says verification will roll out on an ongoing basis and that the absence of a badge does not mean a profile will not receive one in the future.
The platform is also launching a new profile section in beta across all artist profiles that will highlight career milestones, release activity, and touring activity.
Spotify says this section will give users a quick way to see an artist's authentic activity, even if they haven't yet met the criteria for a verification badge.
Meta doesn't come up much in discussions of the top AI products these days, but its products are still benefiting from the ongoing surge of interest in the technology.
You see, the company's business AI tools facilitated about 10 million conversations per week as of late March, up from 1 million in the beginning of this year.
Meta said all this during its first quarter conference call on Wednesday.
The growth comes as the company recently expanded the beta program of its business AI assistant in the U.S., EMEA, APAC, and LADAM.
Meta isn't monetizing its business AI tools yet, offering them for free to small businesses to achieve scale, but CEO Mark Zuckerberg hinted that may change in the near future.
Meta has been baking AI capabilities into its suite of business products on its various platforms and is working to power these products with its new large-language model, MuseSpark, the first one to be released under the Meta Superintelligence Labs division set up last year.
The company said it's seen solid traction for its creative AI tools in the quarter.
Usage of our ad creative tools is also scaling, with more than 8 million advertisers using at least one of our Gen AI ad creative tools and particularly strong adoption among small and medium-sized businesses.
These tools are benefiting performance as well, with advertisers using our video generation features seeing more than 3% higher conversion rates in tests, CFO Susan Lee said on the call.
The company reported profit of $26.8 billion in the first quarter, up from $16.6 billion a year earlier.
Revenue came in at $56.3 billion, up 33% from last year.
Well, now you've heard of Instagram Reels.
Get ready for Netflix clips.
Yeah, that's right.
Netflix is redesigning its mobile app and introducing Clips, a vertical video feed intended to help users discover new content by sharing highlights from original Netflix programming.
Think of clips as a personalized highlight reel that helps you decide what to watch or play next without endless scrolling, Netflix wrote in the press release.
It continued, you'll see short clips from series, films, and specials tailored to your tastes with an easy way to go deeper when something grabs your attention.
The idea is that if you're on the go, you likely aren't going to pull out your phone to watch the next three minutes of the Love is Blind episode you're on, but...
you might watch a short curated clip of another Netflix show for a fast laugh, which is exactly what Netflix named a similar feature, Fast Laughs, way back in 2021.
Admittedly, we may have rolled our eyes five years ago when every social media platform rushed to release a TikTok copycat feature, but now even LinkedIn is pushing vertical video on its mobile app.
It's safe to say that vertical video's here to stay.
Netflix, for its part, has experimented for years with how to incorporate short-form video, and the company seems to have settled on clips.
It's not just TikTok-like social feeds where vertical video is taking over.
The micro-drama industry, bite-sized episodic series, typically under 10 minutes per episode, designed to be watched on a phone screen, which first caught on in Asia, is building momentum in the good old US of A, making users more accustomed to watching serialized stories on vertical feeds.
Let's now go over to producer Dennis with today's startup business news all in about one minute.
Hey, Imran, thanks.
Let's begin with parallel web systems.
this AI agent tool startup has raised a $100 million Series B at a $2 billion valuation.
This raise comes just five months after the startup announced its $100 million Series A at a $740 million valuation and brings the total capital it raised to $230 million.
Parallel offers a suite of web search and research APIs specifically for AI agents and names customers such as Clay, Harvey, Notion, and Opendoor.
In addition to some big-name customers, Parallel tells TechCrunch it has over 100,000 developers using its products.
And Shapes, an app where humans and AI characters chat together in shared group conversations, is emerging from stealth with $8 million in seed funding.
Think Discord, but with AI characters alongside humans.
Founded in 2022, Shapes has more than 400,000 monthly active users.
Instead of isolating people with one-on-one interactions with AI, Shapes allows people to connect with AI within their everyday interactions with real people.
And that'll do it for me.
Imran, back to you.
And folks, that's your Daily Crunch.
Today's stories were reported by Aisha Malik, Amanda Silberling, Ivan Mehta and more awesome TechCrunch journalists.
We'll see you here tomorrow.
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