Pinterest launches an experimental AI shopping app called ‘Ask Pinterest’

Pinterest has launched a standalone experimental app called “Ask Pinterest” that lets users pose natural-language questions to receive personalized shopping recommendations, the company announced Wednesday ahead of the Cannes Lions advertising festival [1]. The online application draws on Pinterest’s “Taste Graph,” an internal data set that maps people to their interests and aesthetics, to power a conversational, chatbot-style interface [1]. It will initially be available in limited access, the company said [1]. The app can also incorporate a user’s own saved Pins and Boards to tailor its answers [1]. Pinterest Chief Business Officer Lee Brown framed the move as a response to shifting search habits. “The future of discovery won’t be driven by keywords alone. It will be shaped by context, taste, and trusted recommendations,” Brown said, adding that Pinterest believes it has a “unique advantage” in that area [1]. The launch arrives as AI chatbots increasingly compete with traditional search engines for consumer attention [1]. Google has integrated AI into shopping tools that help users find products, track prices, and complete purchases, while ChatGPT, Meta, and Shopify have each tested agentic shopping features [1]. Unlike some peers that license data to outside AI services, Pinterest has concentrated on using its own data to train models and build in-house products [1]. By releasing Ask Pinterest as a separate app, the company can experiment with conversational commerce without altering the core Pinterest experience [1]. The company said the tool is suited for multi-step queries that do not fit a conventional Pinterest search, such as planning a dinner party or furnishing a room over time, and is designed to retain user context across sessions [1]. Pinterest also introduced several advertiser-focused updates. An AI assistant, still in beta, is now available in Ads Manager in the U.S. [1]. A new AI model called Performance+ creative was rolled out globally to help advertisers automatically select the ad creative most likely to perform each time an ad is shown [1]. The company also announced a Model Context Protocol (MCP) infrastructure layer that lets advertisers manage and monitor campaigns through third-party agentic tools in a standardized way [1]. The announcements come as social-media platforms continue to reshape shopping behavior. In the 2020s, companies including fast-fashion retailers have used platforms such as TikTok and Instagram as marketing tools, while e-commerce sites like Depop and Etsy have grown by promoting small businesses and resale [4]. Pinterest, which counts over 100 million registered users, operates within this broader ecosystem where user-generated content and algorithmic recommendations increasingly drive purchase decisions [3].