Dive Brief:
- Pinterest is leaning into use cases for agentic AI in which customers already show trust in AI, such as removing friction and improving discovery, to enhance its customer experience as chatbots become more ocmmon, CEO Bill Ready said during a Q4 2025 earnings call last week.
- “In essence, we're helping our users know what to buy before they know what to ask for, which has historically been one of the biggest problems in search, [which] is that people don't have the words to describe what it is they're looking for,” Ready said during the call.
- The social media platform sees less demand for experiences where agents handle the complete shopping journey without user input, Ready said. “We see users wanting to be in the loop for the foreseeable future.”
Dive Insight:
Pinterest is positioning itself as a place where customers can have a great shopping experience as AI chatbots become more common.
One of the platform’s priorities is building a differentiated visual search, discovery and shopping experience, according to Ready. Pinterest aims to be highly personalized with an emphasis on visual presentation to help build momentum with users.
“Stepping back, e-commerce spent the first two decades focused on perfecting buying online, cheap and fast fulfillment — often at the expense of shopping, the joy of discovering what you actually want,” Ready said. “Today, there are countless places to buy, but few great places to shop, and that's where visual discovery matters most.”
AI will be important to Pinterest’s experience, including for enabling more accurate personalization, according to Ready. The technology helps customers find relevant products as soon as they open the Pinterest app, without having to type in a prompt.
Last year, Pinterest rolled out a suite of AI-powered shopping and product discovery features designed to turn it into a personal shopping assistant. The tools include updated boards and AI-powered fashion collages made from saved Pins.
“AI is changing how people discover, how they form intent, narrow choices and move from inspiration to action. Pinterest is designed for this shift,” Ready said. “When users have intent, but don't have the exact words, brand or product in mind, that's where we win.”
Higher user engagement is fueling revenue growth at the company. Pinterest’s revenue rose 14% year over year to $1.3 billion in the fourth quarter of 2025, according to an earnings report. Revenue for 2025 reached a record $4.2 billion, up 16% year over year.
The results disappointed executives despite the growth, which missed analysts’ expectations.
“We are not satisfied with our Q4 revenue performance and believe it does not reflect what Pinterest can deliver over time,” Ready said.
