Pinterest NYSE: PINS CEO Bill Ready said the company has evolved from a visual discovery and browsing platform into what he described as an AI-driven shopping assistant serving more than 640 million users. Speaking at a conference fireside chat, Ready said the company’s efforts to make the platform more actionable have supported double-digit user growth, higher engagement and an expanding performance advertising business.
Ready said more than half of Pinterest users now come to the platform to shop, while Gen Z has become its largest and fastest-growing user cohort and represents more than half of users. He cited an Adobe study indicating that 39% of Gen Z consumers view Pinterest as the first place they go to search, while 71% see it as more personalized than other search destinations.
“Pinterest is where Gen Z goes to shop,” Ready said, adding that the platform’s recommendations are supported by data created through users’ curation of visual content, style and preferences.
Shopping and Advertising Progress
Ready said Pinterest has shifted substantially toward lower-funnel advertising since he joined the company four years ago. The platform was previously “almost entirely” focused on upper-funnel ads, he said, while more than two-thirds of its business is now lower-funnel performance advertising. Pinterest has also generated more than five times as many clicks to advertisers over the past three years, according to Ready.
He said the company has made particular monetization progress in the U.S. and Canada, or UCAN, while international markets remain a larger opportunity. More than 80% of Pinterest’s users are outside the U.S., Ready said, but those markets account for roughly 20% of monetization.
The CEO also disclosed that U.S. average revenue per user for Gen Z is now roughly consistent with the ARPU of millennials. He said Gen Z users have the platform’s deepest engagement and highest retention, and argued that their purchasing power should increase as the cohort matures.
Ready said Pinterest Performance+, the company’s AI-driven advertising platform, reached general availability at the beginning of last year. About 30% of Pinterest’s lower-funnel revenue now runs through Performance+, he said. The product is designed to reduce the work required for advertisers to create campaigns while using AI to optimize where and how ads reach users across the purchasing journey.
Ready said advertisers using multiple objectives across the funnel have generated three times the conversion rate on Pinterest, up from the two-times conversion benefit the company had previously discussed.
International Pressures and CFO Search
While declining to provide an intra-quarter update, Ready said the business factors discussed on Pinterest’s earnings call remained consistent. He pointed to the reacceleration of the UCAN business during the first half, supported by AI-driven advertising improvements and changes to the company’s go-to-market approach.
Internationally, however, Ready said Pinterest is facing pressure from new European regulations affecting Asia-based cross-border sellers. He also said the company is restructuring its international go-to-market organization, using a playbook developed in the U.S. The changes could create near-term disruption but are intended to support medium- and long-term growth, he said.
Ready addressed the departure of CFO Julia, saying the company is seeking a successor with experience managing operational complexity at scale. He said Pinterest has expanded from what he characterized as a single-product platform in one geography to a business with multiple products and a broader international footprint.
The company has added leadership across product and technology, ads engineering, infrastructure, international product engineering, business operations and marketing, Ready said. The next CFO should be a “deep operational partner” suited to Pinterest’s next stage of expansion, he added.
AI Strategy Focuses on Proprietary Data and Cost
Ready said Pinterest uses a mix of compact, purpose-built models and open-source or open-weight models that are post-trained on the company’s proprietary data. Nearly everything users see on Pinterest is served by AI, he said.
The company’s approach is intended to pair AI with commercial use cases while managing costs. Ready said Pinterest can operate open-source or open-weight models at less than 8% of the cost of comparable closed models. He said post-training those models on Pinterest’s data can also improve effectiveness and allow the company to operate models in its own secure environment.
Ready argued that open models can make AI capabilities more broadly available across the technology industry. He said Pinterest’s differentiated advantage comes from its user data, distribution and feedback loops around visual discovery and shopping intent.
Pinterest has also expanded its assistant capabilities to virtually all U.S. users, Ready said. The assistant allows users to ask follow-up questions within Pinterest, such as whether a shoe brand runs large or small. While more than half of Pinterest’s more than 80 billion monthly searches are commercial, Ready said 80% of assistant searches are commercial.
Connected TV Expansion Through tvScientific
Ready said Pinterest’s acquisition of tvScientific is an early step toward applying the company’s audience data and advertising capabilities beyond its core platform. He described tvScientific as a Performance+ advertising platform for connected television.
By layering Pinterest’s audience and commercial-intent data onto tvScientific’s connected-TV advertising capabilities, Ready said the company has observed a more than 60% lift in purchases. He said the opportunity is to deliver more personalized connected-TV ads rather than presenting the same advertising to all viewers of a program.
Ready said Pinterest sees connected TV as one of several potential surfaces for monetizing its audience and shopping signals. He added that the company is focused on the role of unique data and consumer relationships as AI models become more widely available.
About Pinterest (NYSE:PINS)
Pinterest, Inc NYSE: PINS operates a visual discovery and planning platform that helps people find ideas and inspiration across categories such as home design, food, fashion, travel and hobbies. Users can discover, save and organize images, videos and other content into collections called boards, as well as share ideas with others.
The company also provides tools for merchants, creators and advertisers. Businesses can use Pinterest to showcase products, reach audiences through visual advertising and direct users to websites or online shopping experiences.
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