Pinterest Adds AI-Powered Shopping Trend Forecasts for Advertisers

Pinterest has introduced two artificial intelligence (AI)-powered tools for advertisers that it says will provide enhanced ad solutions and shopping trend forecasts.

One tool now being piloted among select advertisers is auto-collages, which uses AI to turn advertisers’ existing Pinterest product catalog into shoppable collages, the company said in a Wednesday (June 11) press release.

This AI feature turns product images into new shoppable visual content by, for example, building outfit ideas, emulating existing collages that have drawn strong user engagement, grouping together similar products, or creating collages that are similar to those users have saved on their boards, according to the release.

“The auto-collages tool is an exciting leap that harnesses AI to instantly transform how brands turn their product catalog into fresh creative that resonates with Gen Z and beyond,” Julie Towns, vice president for product marketing and operations at Pinterest, said in the release.

The other tool announced Wednesday by Pinterest is an AI-enhanced version of its Trends tool that gives advertisers insights into what consumers want to buy, according to the release.

The new version of Trends uses not only search data but also insights into what Pinterest users are saving, curating and shopping. With these insights, it can help brands visualize top trending searches in their category and see high-level themes based on top trending topics, per the release.

One advertiser using Trends is eBay, according to the release.

“Pinterest’s trends data is highly valuable for understanding what matters to shoppers on any given day,” Subbu Chandrasekaran, marketing platforms at eBay, said in the release. “It not only offers insights into what users are actively searching for but also enables us to build systems that identify which trends are truly shoppable.”

Pinterest CEO Bill Ready said in May that the company’s investment in AI drove its growth in revenue and monthly active users in the first quarter.

“Our ability to leverage AI to personalize our users’ experience is a key differentiator and has enabled us to find our best product market fit in years,” Ready said during an earnings call.

Generative AI is helping visual search understand, classify and recommend the billions of images consumers browse every day, even when they can’t describe what they’re looking for in words, Pinterest Vice President of Design Dana Cho told PYMNTS CEO Karen Webster in an interview posted in May.

“There are image search engines that give you a near-duplicate,” Cho said. “We want to show you it, like it, and slightly adjacent to it — the rabbit-hole experience users expect from Pinterest.”