Pinterest announced in June 2026 the launch of “Ask Pinterest,” a standalone experimental app that lets users seek shopping recommendations and inspiration through a conversational, chatbot-like interface. The app is initially available in limited access.
Unlike a traditional Pinterest search, Ask Pinterest is designed to handle more complex or multi-step queries — such as planning a dinner party or furnishing a room over time. It draws on Pinterest’s internal “Taste Graph,” which maps users to their interests and aesthetics, and can also pull from a user’s own saved Pins and Boards to personalize its responses.
By building Ask Pinterest as a separate app, Pinterest says it can test the technology without disrupting the main Pinterest experience. Results from the experiment are expected to inform future AI-powered features in the flagship app.
The announcement came alongside several other AI updates aimed at advertisers, timed ahead of the Cannes Lions adtech industry gathering. These include a beta AI assistant inside Pinterest’s Ads Manager in the U.S., a new global AI model called Performance+ creative that helps advertisers select the ad creative most likely to perform well, and a Pinterest Model Context Protocol (MCP) infrastructure layer that allows advertisers to manage campaigns using third-party agentic tools.
Pinterest Chief Business Officer Lee Brown said in the announcement that “the future of discovery won’t be driven by keywords alone. It will be shaped by context, taste, and trusted recommendations” — an area where he said Pinterest holds a “unique advantage.”
The move comes as AI chatbots increasingly compete with traditional search engines for consumer attention. Pinterest has chosen to use its own data to train its AI models rather than licensing that data to other AI services, according to the company.
Source: TechCrunch