During a Tuesday earnings call, Pinterest’s CEO, Bill Ready, emphasized the potential of open source AI models. He said they could help the company lower expenses as it broadens visual AI use cases.
The image pinboarding website, frequently users’ initial step in shopping, utilizes AI to enhance features such as personalized recommendations, a multimodal search integrating text and images, ad targeting, and, most recently, AI-driven product discovery through Pinterest Assistant.
However, investors were curious about Pinterest’s prospects in agentic commerce — AI systems acting independently for users — given the evolving AI landscape, and its possible effects on profitability and growth.
This concern has grown more urgent. The company’s third-quarter earnings forecast a weaker-than-anticipated holiday shopping season, attributing it to President Donald Trump’s tariffs and their adverse effects on home furnishings. Consequently, Pinterest anticipates fourth-quarter revenue between $1.31 billion and $1.34 billion, while analysts projected $1.34 billion on average. The announcement led to a stock plunge of over 21% on Wednesday.
Despite immediate revenue worries, Pinterest CEO Bill Ready highlighted strategies to optimize AI and LLM (large language model) usage without substantial cost increases. Besides proprietary models already factored into costs, Ready mentioned regularly testing leading off-the-shelf models against open-source alternatives, finding the latter promising.
“We’re observing remarkably strong performance from open source models, especially for Pinterest’s visual AI applications,” Ready informed investors. “Early tests, considering current market rates and per token costs, show that fine-tuned open source models offer comparable performance to leading proprietary models at significantly reduced costs.”
He stated the company’s intention to implement numerous open-source models across its applications, at “a fraction of the cost” compared to larger model providers.
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“We’re confident in the value we provide to users, our ability to monetize it, and our efficiency in managing costs,” Ready stated.
The executive also addressed Pinterest’s exploration of AI applications, including agentic shopping. Ready noted that Pinterest already facilitates “push-button type buying” through its Amazon partnership and will assess user demand for AI-driven automated purchasing.
Meanwhile, Ready suggested Pinterest’s primary distinction lies in guiding users through shopping, a feature they aim to enhance with Pinterest Assistant, an AI companion offering advice and recommendations. The assistant understands users based on their boards, collages, saves, and similarities to others, according to the company.
Pinterest is also introducing personalized boards, AI-curated and combining expert human input with AI, according to Ready.
