Users open a hair or nail Pin and tap “Get the Guide.” The tool reads the hairstyle, color, nail shape and finish in the image. Each guide covers what to ask for at the salon, what to expect during the appointment, similar looks, relevant products and steps for re-creating the look at home, Pinterest said. Users can save the guide for the salon visit. The guides are live for iOS users in the U.S.
The guides help people go “from seeing a look they love to knowing how to make it their own,” Matt Madrigal, Pinterest’s chief product and technology officer, said in the announcement.
Pinterest Builds Its AI on Years of Saves
Beauty Guides is the newest piece of a wider AI push. Pinterest Assistant recommends products based on a user’s saves, boards and collages, the company said when it introduced the tool in October 2025. Users can search it with images, voice or text. Pinterest CEO Bill Ready said the assistant helps people shop “like they would with that person who knows them best.”
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Ask Pinterest, an experimental app released in June, handles longer projects, such as planning a dinner party or furnishing a room over time, TechCrunch reported. The app runs on Pinterest’s Taste Graph, its map of what users like, and is open to a limited number of web users. Signed-in users get answers shaped by their saved Pins and boards. Pinterest plans to use lessons from the app in its main app’s AI features. Lee Brown, Pinterest’s chief business officer, said the future of discovery “won’t be driven by keywords alone,” TechCrunch reported.
The main assistant is reaching more people, too. Pinterest expanded it to most U.S. users in July. More than 96% of Pinterest’s text-based searches are unbranded, PYMNTS reported on the company’s second-quarter results. That puts Pinterest’s AI in the research phase, when someone has an idea but not yet a decision.
Google Chases the Same Handoff
Google’s AI Mode lets users in the U.K. describe a restaurant request, including group size and dietary needs, then book through partners such as OpenTable without leaving Search, Google said in April. The feature links to eight reservation platforms. U.K. searches for “when to book a table” rose 140% in 2026, according to Google Trends data the company cited.
U.S. shoppers are already on board, up to a point. About 49.6 million U.S. adults now begin retail research with AI, and 83% of those researchers had AI change at least one purchase decision, PYMNTS Intelligence found in “The 50 Million Consumer Migration: The Data Behind Retail’s Shift Toward AI Discovery.” Fewer will hand over checkout. While 56% would let AI search and compare products, 35% would give it their saved payment details, the same research found.
Pinterest plans to bring Beauty Guides to more people and regions and to build guides for other product categories, the company said in its launch announcement. More than 85% of Pinterest beauty purchasers discover new trends on Pinterest before anywhere else, according to unaudited company figures released with the launch. Nearly 9 in 10 users feel confident buying beauty products they find on Pinterest, the company said.
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