Pinterest continues to tinker with new ways for its users to discover new results that may lead to online purchases, and its latest tool is a visually focused assistant that uses artificial intelligence (AI).
Simply named Pinterest Assistant, the social platform announced the launch and shared some details about how it has trained its AI model. The result, according to Pinterest, is a new multimodal search experience that can flow among images, voice input and text.
How Pinterest Assistant works
“People, especially Gen Z, say that the magic of Pinterest is that it ‘just gets me,’ whether that’s finding the perfect outfit or knowing your distinct style,” said Bill Ready, chief executive officer at Pinterest. “With Pinterest Assistant, we’re supercharging that magic by leveraging AI to help our users discover and shop like they would with that person who knows them best.”
So far, the company claims that its systems are trained with “billions of signals,” referencing its proprietary “Taste-graph.” Because of these advantages, Pinterest asserts that its AI model for visual search can outperform other “off-the-shelf models by over 30%” when providing relevant shopping recommendations.
To deliver those recommendations, Pinterest Assistant received conversational input — including voice prompts — to return shoppable results with desired visual attributes. Users can activate the tool by tapping a microphone icon within the Pinterest app experience.
Where Pinterest Assistant is available
As of Oct. 30, Pinterest announced that Assistant was appearing in beta for its U.S. users who are 18 and older. In the meantime, the platform is soliciting signups from its users who would like to try using it before Assistant is generally available. In addition, Pinterest advertisers are being invited to gain access through their account representatives.
The Pinterest Assistant announcement came ahead of Pinterest’s expected fiscal third-quarter earnings, which it scheduled for Nov. 4. At the end of its second quarter, which ended on June 30, Pinterest counted 578 million global monthly active users. That total was up 11% year over year. Its revenue was up 17% year over year to $998 million in that same quarter.
Currently, Pinterest has positioned itself as a “go-to platform for Gen Z shoppers,” and its framing for the Assistant launch reflects those priorities. It follows another launch in 2025, which saw Pinterest and e.l.f. Cosmetics collaborate on a makeup tool and boards that could incorporate seasonal trends and other details from images. Those boards feature shoppable e.l.f. products that are matched accordingly using relevant attributes.
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