Pinterest’s new AI tools for the discovery era: from ads to personalised shopping

As AI changes how people search, browse, and make decisions, the industry is moving beyond the traditional search-and-click model toward a more conversational and generative web. In this new environment, brands are competing not just for attention, but for recommendation, relevance and action.

Ahead of Cannes Lions, Pinterest are introducing new AI-powered tools built for this shift, including Business Assistant, Pinterest Model Context Protocol (MCP) and new Pinterest Performance+ creative capabilities.

Also rolling out is Ask Pinterest, a limited access app that will allow Pinterest to experiment with the next generation of AI-powered shopping experiences and learn quickly from our users. The future of discovery won’t be driven by keywords alone. It will be shaped by context, taste, and trusted recommendations.

Pinterest has a unique advantage because people come to our platform to plan, curate and take action on what they want to do next. We’re building AI experiences and infrastructure that tap into those signals in more useful and relevant ways.

– Lee Brown, Chief Business Officer, Pinterest Business Assistant brings AI-powered guidance to advertisers Pinterest is building AI into advertiser workflows with Business Assistant, an AI collaborator in Ads Manager and mobile, currently in a closed beta in the US.

It combines a deep understanding of an advertiser’s business with Pinterest’s platform insights to help advertisers drive the best performance, building on the approach pioneered by Pinterest Assistant. Like Pinterest, Business Assistant is visual. It doesn’t answer with walls of text, but demonstrates breakout Trends in graphs and shows top Pins to promote.

For example, if “clean beauty routine” searches are up 42% one week and an advertiser wants to join in, Business Assistant can represent how user interest grew, alongside real Pins leading the Trend to inspire their ads.

Pinterest have also brought Business Assistant to mobile, so advertisers get proactive notifications about Trends, performance status and optimisation opportunities.

Pinterest MCP: making Pinterest operable in AI-driven workflows In addition to further integrating AI into the advertiser experience, Pinterest is also embedding AI into partner tools with Pinterest MCP (Model Context Protocol), an AI-native infrastructure that connects Pinterest to the copilots and agentic tools advertisers rely on.

As AI transforms marketing, partners need a reliable, standardised integration. Built on the Model Context Protocol, Pinterest’s offering provides secure access to campaign, analytics and keyword insights.

It grounds AI workflows in Pinterest’s unique signals including taste, trends and intent, allowing partner copilots to provide platform-specific guidance directly within existing tools. Pinterest are evolving Pinterest MCP alongside alpha partners like PMG, Pacvue, Innovid by Mediaocean and Omnicom’s Jump450.

Their feedback is shaping the protocol across reporting, analysis, campaign planning and execution, directly informing how we expand in the future. Pinterest MCP helps us integrate Pinterest directly into the workflows our teams are already building, making it easier to analyse performance, uncover insights and act on opportunities without switching tools.

What makes Pinterest especially compelling is the strength of its intent signals. People come to Pinterest to plan what they want to do next, creating valuable context that helps marketers make smarter decisions.

– Chris Ivey, President, Jump 45 Pinterest Performance+ creative: increasing creative variation through new AI models As AI scales creative variation across platforms, brands need smarter selection models to turn more assets into stronger performance.

Pinterest is introducing a new AI model to work with Pinterest Performance+ creative to deliver the right variation at the right moment. Through dynamic creative selection, the model can evaluate a broader set of creatives and identify the variant most likely to perform for each ad impression.

This moves performance optimisation from the ad level to the asset level, delivering a more personalised experience for users and better results for advertisers. In testing, the new model increased click volume by 7. 5% compared to the previous singular variant model. Pinterest Performance+ creative and its new AI model are available to advertisers globally.

In addition to a more powerful creative selection model, brands will also have access to new ad review tools and enhanced creative reporting breakouts, giving them greater confidence in how their creative appears and performs on Pinterest.

Ask Pinterest: AI experiments outside the Pinterest app As consumer behaviour around AI search and discovery evolves, we’re creating a new space to rapidly test and learn. Rolling out in the US, Ask Pinterest is a new experimental app for exploring more conversational, visual-first and agentic shopping experiences. Ask Pinterest brings Pintere