The Pinterest platform has launched “Ask Pinterest”, an experimental application, currently available under limited access, that will allow the company to explore a more conversational approach to shopping and product discovery. Their intention with it is to apply and expand the visual discovery experience the company is known for beyond its core platform and explore more personalized, visual and conversational purchasing processes.
Ask Pinterest is part of the platform’s commitment to artificial intelligence
Pinterest has announced the initiative a few days before the start of the Cannes Lions international creativity festival, an event that brings together the global marketing industry and in which it acts as a sponsor. Along with “Ask Pinterest”, it has also presented new functionalities and advertising tools, some of them powered by artificial intelligence.
As noted in a statement, “Ask Pinterest” will allow you to experiment with the next generation of shopping experiences powered by AI and obtain agile learning from user behavior. It represents a new application of its Taste Graph technology, which collects and shares information about users’ tastes, intentions and preferences to generate recommendations and inspire decisions.
As the company has shown, the application presents a conversational interface, similar to an artificial intelligence chatbot that users are used to. Questions can be asked in natural language to obtain personalized recommendations and inspiration on all types of products. In this sense, “Ask Pinterest” connects the user’s browsing behavior on Pinterest, including their pins and saved posts, with purchase recommendations.
The company says that “Ask Pinterest” is designed to solve complex, multi-step purchasing decisions, such as planning a dinner based on a budget, finding a gift that feels personal, or furnishing a space with your own style. “This experience allows Pinterest to experiment with the potential of artificial intelligence to assist in more sophisticated purchasing processes, always maintaining user context between sessions.”, they explain.
In this sense, they point out that the learning obtained from the use that users make of “Ask Pinterest” will be fundamental for the development of future experiences based on artificial intelligence within Pinterest itself. The new application could even be integrated into the main platform.
Pinterest launches the application in a context in which chatbots are gaining ground on traditional search engines in terms of discovery. Large companies, such as Google, Meta or OpenAI, are already implementing artificial intelligence to help consumers find what they are looking for, and are exploring new formulas for online shopping.
Pinterest’s move is strategic, as it preserves its consumer intelligence and keeps it within its own business universe. Instead of becoming a source of product recommendations that other AI services could integrate through licensing agreements, the company capitalizes on using its own data to train AI models and power its AI products.
With “Ask Pinterest,” Pinterest is strengthened at a time when artificial intelligence is transforming the way people search, navigate and make decisions. “The future of discovery will no longer depend solely on keywords, but will be defined by context, taste and trusted recommendations“, said Lee Brown, Chief Business Officer of Pinterest, in the statement. “Pinterest has a unique advantage, as people come to the platform to plan, select and drive their next steps“.
