Shopee Launches AI Celebrity Live Commerce with 37 Partners, Deploying Multilingual Perpetual Celebrity Commerce

Shopee Unveils AI-Powered Celebrity Live Commerce

Sea Tests AI Celebrity Live Commerce To Lift Shopee Engagement And Monetization

Shopee, the e commerce arm of Sea (NYSE:SE), is rolling out a new livestream shopping format featuring multinational celebrity Metta World Peace. The initiative uses an AI powered digital likeness platform to host licensed virtual celebrity interactions with shoppers.

On March 4, 2026, Sea Limited (NYSE: SE), the operator of Southeast Asia's leading e-commerce platform Shopee, began testing a new live commerce format powered by AI-generated celebrity digital likenesses. The first celebrity featured is former NBA All-Star Metta World Peace.

The initiative is built on the "Perpetual Celebrity Commerce (PCC)" platform developed by 37 Partners, co-founded by Metta World Peace in 2025. On Shopee, Metta's officially licensed digital likeness hosts live commerce sessions and interacts with fans in real time. The platform features real-time multilingual translation and region-specific customization capabilities.

Background and Industry Context

Shopee's decision to embrace celebrity AI live commerce at this timing is driven by fierce competition in the Southeast Asian e-commerce market.

Shopee held a dominant 52% share of the Southeast Asian e-commerce market in 2024, but TikTok Shop has been rapidly closing the gap. According to KrASIA, TikTok Shop has captured 18% of the Southeast Asian e-commerce market, surpassing Lazada to become the number two player. Its combination of live commerce and algorithm-driven product discovery is a key strength, with live streaming and video shopping already accounting for 20% of platform GMV.

Sea Limited's full-year 2025 results provide important context. The earnings report published on March 3, 2026 showed Shopee's GAAP revenue growing 33.9% year-over-year to $14.5 billion. However, the 2026 GMV growth target of approximately 25% year-over-year demands further profitability improvements. AI live commerce is positioned as a new weapon for increasing per-user revenue through content rather than relying on traditional subsidies.

How Perpetual Celebrity Commerce Works and Its Differentiators

The PCC platform developed by 37 Partners has three distinguishing features that set it apart from conventional live commerce.

Official Licensing and Talent Control. As deepfakes and unauthorized AI-generated content become social concerns, PCC adopts a "rights-first" model. Digital likenesses are used only within ranges explicitly authorized by the talent, and the talent themselves set restrictions on categories and content they participate in. 37 Partners CEO Matthew Heller states that "the talent authorizes, sets the terms, and retains control."

Real-time Multilingual Translation. PCC's most significant technical feature is its ability to perform real-time multilingual translation during live sessions. This enables English-speaking celebrities to interact with shoppers in Indonesian, Thai, Vietnamese, and other Southeast Asian languages. Time zone constraints are also eliminated, creating a celebrity's "perpetual virtual presence."

License and Revenue Share Model. On the commercial side, talents directly participate in revenue generated from live sessions, exclusive content, and brand activations. Unlike the one-time payment model of influencer marketing, this enables long-term, continuous monetization.

Integration with Shopee's Broader AI Strategy

The AI celebrity live commerce initiative is part of Sea's broader AI strategy across Shopee. In February 2026, Sea and Google announced an expansion of their comprehensive AI partnership. The partnership includes exploring the development of "agentic shopping prototypes" between Shopee and Google, with the goal of building next-generation shopping experiences where AI seamlessly connects product discovery to purchase completion.

Additionally, Sea's financial services arm "Monee" has announced its participation in Google's Agent Payments Protocol (AP2), contributing Southeast Asian insights to the development of protocols for AI agents to securely execute payments.

In other words, Shopee is simultaneously advancing AI commerce across three layers: "AI celebrity content engagement," "agentic product discovery," and "AI agent payments."

Implications and Strategies for E-commerce Businesses

Shopee's move contains several important implications for e-commerce businesses.

The Arrival of the "Host-Free" Live Commerce Era. With AI digital likenesses, human hosts no longer need to stream 24/7. In the Southeast Asian e-commerce market, analysis by SellerCraft shows that hybrid live commerce models are enabling brands to extend selling hours and capture additional GMV without excessive human resource consumption. AI celebrity live commerce will further accelerate this trend.

Removing Cross-border Content Barriers. With real-time multilingual translation, a single content asset can function across multiple markets simultaneously. By supporting more than six Southeast Asian languages, celebrity and influencer cross-border utilization, previously hindered by language barriers, becomes realistic.

New Advertising and Sponsorship Frameworks. AI celebrity live sessions create new advertising and sponsorship inventory beyond traditional marketplace fees. As Shopee pushes to expand advertising revenue, brands gain access to a new channel for product placement within celebrity commerce sessions.

However, this is currently in the testing phase, and specific metrics such as conversion rates, watch time, and advertiser response have not yet been disclosed. Competitors including TikTok Shop, Lazada, and Temu may develop similar capabilities, and the sustainability of any first-mover advantage requires close observation.

Summary

Shopee's AI celebrity live commerce is not merely a branding initiative but an experiment in transforming the fundamental structure of live commerce. 37 Partners has previewed additional talent deployments in 2026 including athletes, entertainers, and musicians, with plans to expand beyond Shopee to other platforms.

Key areas to watch include the disclosure of concrete KPIs such as session watch time and conversion rates, and competitive platform responses. The Southeast Asian e-commerce market faces unprecedented competition with TikTok Shop's rapid growth, Temu's entry, and Lazada's resurgence. How the new content layer of "AI celebrities" reshapes this landscape remains to be seen. E-commerce businesses should begin preparing to incorporate this shift into their cross-border and live commerce strategies now.