Pinterest is intensifying its investment in open source AI models to strengthen its visual discovery and personalization tools while keeping operating costs low, CEO Bill Ready told investors during the company’s latest earnings call. The platform, which powers shopping inspiration for millions of users, is using AI to enhance recommendations, multimodal search, ad targeting, and its new Pinterest Assistant, an AI companion that helps users discover products through conversation.
Ready said Pinterest’s internal tests show that fine-tuned open source models deliver comparable performance to proprietary systems at a fraction of the cost, enabling scalable innovation across its product lineup. The company is also exploring agentic commerce and expanding its AI-curated shopping experiences to drive long-term growth despite near-term market pressures.
Featured image: Credit: Pinterest
