Pinterest’s AI outperforms generic models by 30 points in shopping relevance

Pinterest is now ruled by Gen Z, and the reason is simple: AI. CEO Bill Ready told Yahoo Finance during Goldman Sachs’ Communacopia Technology Conference that over 50% of the platform’s users are Gen Z, calling them its biggest and fastest-growing group.

Why are they there? “They’re getting really great AI-enabled shopping recommendations that are personally relevant to them,” Ready said.

The company’s AI tools are actually delivering. According to Ready, Pinterest’s AI-driven product suggestions beat regular models by 30 percentage points in shopping relevance.

Gen Z is clearly responding. Adobe data backs this up, as 39% of Gen Z users now begin their product search on Pinterest.

AI pushes growth, but Pinterest’s numbers show risks

Pinterest has now pulled off eight quarters straight of user growth. In Q2 of this year, the platform brought in $998 million, a 17% jump from last year. Monthly active users climbed to 578 million, up 11% year-over-year. Even better for shareholders is the fact that Pinterest’s stock is up 20% this year, beating the S&P 500’s 11% gain.

But the US and Canada user count didn’t move at all quarter-to-quarter. In Europe, users actually dropped a bit. And while growth looked strong, investors weren’t thrilled about what came next.

For Q3, Pinterest expects lower margins, since it’s spending big on AI hires and expanding its sales team. That move, while strategic, could bite in the short term.

This isn’t a broad, secure tech moat like Amazon or Meta. Pinterest still relies heavily on one thing: Gen Z engagement. That makes it narrow. Ready admits the platform is in the “early innings” of its AI game and sees a “multiyear runway”, but there’s no certainty that AI alone can keep the growth going.

The company is trying to spread out a bit. It’s now moving into travel and auto content, trying to shake off its female-skewed base and pull in more diverse users. But the big question still hangs; will AI keep people loyal, or will they bounce like they do everywhere else?

Even Goldman Sachs analysts have mixed feelings. Eric Sheridan said, “We recognize that some short-term debates may persist on sequential user trends and rate/pace of second derivative relative ad performance,” but pushed attention to the long-term outlook: shoppable content, bottom-funnel ad targeting, and strategic partnerships that could scale monetization.

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