The entrance to Pinterest's San Francisco headquarters. "Traditional search advertising has long been based on keywords, but in a world driven by artificial intelligence, people express themselves in much richer ways," said Bill Ready, Pinterest's CEO.
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The company announced Visual Search Ads on September 17 at Pinterest Presents, its annual advertising conference. The format places advertisers in Pinterest search results and Pin details. Advertisers can bid for a top response and send users directly to their own website. The ads support lower-level goals and are powered by Performance+, the company’s AI advertising suite.
The format will enter beta for eligible advertisers across all of Pinterest’s ad markets in the coming weeks, Pinterest said. Pinterest users make more than 80 billion searches a month, according to the company’s second-quarter earnings data. The vast majority are visual, and more than half are commercial.
Ready said more than 96 percent of those searches are unbranded, in comments at the conference. People arrive with intent but before they’ve decided what to buy, he said. He also noted that Pinterest has 640 million monthly users, that it has seen record user growth for 12 consecutive quarters, and that Gen Z now makes up more than half of its audience. In May, TNW reported that the company had surpassed $1 billion in quarterly revenue from the same search bet.
Performance+ adds Priority Products, which allow advertisers to choose which products to promote during a seasonal launch or promotion. Pinterest is also adding self-serve A/B testing for creative, targeted, and Performance+ campaigns.
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App Boost , an objective built for app installs, is now in global beta with select advertisers. One advertiser saw “ up to an 85% improvement in cost per install ” over previous solutions, the company said. That figure comes from a single U.S. business advertiser in an alpha test, Pinterest notes in a footnote. It covers the period from August 2025 to August 2026.
Restyle, a consumer feature, is launching in beta in the U.S. and Canada. It lets users take a photo of a room and then try and compare options in their own home. Users can ask the AI to add wall art, furniture or plants, change paint colors and lighting, or swap and delete individual items. They can also request a different style, such as bohemian or industrial.
Restyle is an early preview for now and will roll out more broadly next month, according to TechCrunch. Pinterest says the feature is powered by Pinterest Intelligence, its visual understanding of images, products, taste and intent. Pinterest said Monday that Pinterest Intelligence combines Nvidia Blackwell GPUs and Nvidia Dynamo with open-source models and its own technology.
The conference also brought back the connected TV series Bring My Pinterest to Life for a second season. Creators Tay BeepBoop Nakamoto and Caroline Vazzana are returning. Other platforms are also placing ads at the decision point. OpenAI is testing Sponsored Agents in ChatGPT. On Prime Day, AI assistants beat search at its own game.
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Pinterest is changing its advertising model as a U.S. judge puts Google's ad tech business under scrutiny. Its chief financial officer, Julia Donnelly, announced her departure on August 31.
