Key Highlights:
- Pinterest launches “Pinterest Assistant,” a voice-enabled AI tool that turns mood boards into personalized shopping guides.
- The feature uses multimodal AI to analyze pins, boards, and user tastes for open-ended, conversational search results.
- Pinterest joins the social-AI shopping trend, following Google and Amazon in blending discovery with real-time, shoppable recommendations.
Social media apps have started to become testing grounds of AI features, and many are already doing it. From Facebook to Instagram to WhatsApp alike, every social media platform these days has some sort of AI features integrated into it. Well, Pinterest has jumped on that boat, and announced “Pinterest Assistant.” It’s a new voice-enabled, AI-powered search and recommendation tool that turns your mood board into a shopping buddy.
How “Pinterest Assistant” Works
To get started, all you have to do is tap the mic icon in the Pinterest app and speak what you want the AI assistant to do for you. Do note that you don’t need exact keywords. You can simply say, “I need new throw pillows that match my living room decor.” Next, Pinterest Assistant does its magic to pull results from your saves, boards, collages, and others with similar tastes.
While traditional search features require you to know what you’re looking for, Pinterest Assistant is built for open-ended discovery. It’s especially useful when you’re shopping for something, but not sure what that something is.
“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 CEO of Pinterest, Bill Ready. “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,” he added.
Pinterest is turning into actionable shopping platform
Pinterest has come a long way from being a simple inspiration board into a full-fledged visual commerce platform. Earlier this year it introduced features like “Styled for You” collages and AI-generated personalized boards. The launch of Pinterest Assistant hints that the platform is moving toward actionable shopping, and not just inspiration.
Pinterest’s move also highlights the growing trend where AI is being embedded into shopping/discovery. To give you an example, Google’s new AI Mode in Search creates fake visuals of items you describe (e.g., “a green flowy dress for a garden party”) and then surfaces real, shoppable matches.
That’s not all; many online retail sites like Amazon and others now include image recognition, user-behavior data and stylized AI collages to predict trends, to suggest outfits and reduce return rates. Speaking of which, Pinterest says its latest multimodal AI model improves the relevance of shopping-style recommendations by 30 percent.
What to Keep in Mind
- The introduction of more AI-driven features also raises questions about discovery authenticity and ad transparency.
- Because recommendations rely heavily on your existing pins and activity, the tool will work best for users who already build boards and save items with intention.
- Some shopping experiences still hinge on the underlying retailer ecosystem and inventory. Therefore, a nice suggestion may still lead to sold-out items or non-shoppable content.
The Pinterest Assistant is rolling out in beta to U.S. users aged 18 and over. The company further adds that wider availability is planned in the coming weeks and months. If you want to try Pinterest Assistant, sign up here. For users who hate endless searching and want inspiration converted into action, the new AI assistant is definitely handy.
All that said, Pinterest isn’t just catching up with rivals like Google and Amazon, it’s proving how discovery turns into shopping. The platform is no longer just a place to dream up ideas. If done right, this could make Pinterest not only smarter, but also your most intuitive personal shopper yet.
