Following a particularly disappointing performance in its fourth-quarter earnings, Pinterest CEO Bill Ready sought to draw a favorable comparison between the digital pinboarding site and the widely popular AI chatbot, ChatGPT.
Aiming to underscore Pinterest's potential as a unique search destination, Ready asserted that the platform experiences a greater search volume than ChatGPT. Citing third-party data, he reported that while ChatGPT records 75 billion searches per month, Pinterest registers an impressive 80 billion searches and generates 1.7 billion monthly clicks.
“That makes us one of the largest search destinations in the world. And importantly, more than half of those searches are commercial in nature, compared to, I think . . .approximately 2% [of ChatGPT searches],” Ready added, highlighting a key differentiator.
In the fourth quarter, Pinterest fell short of analysts' expectations for both revenue and earnings per share, reporting $1.32 billion in revenue against an anticipated $1.33 billion, and earnings per share of 67 cents, missing the projected 69 cents. The company also forecasted first-quarter 2026 sales to be between $951 million and $971 million, which is below the $980 million expected.
The company attributed its financial shortfall to major advertisers scaling back their spending, particularly across Europe, and a new furniture tariff implemented in October that disrupted its home category. It cautioned that these negative trends could intensify in the first quarter.
Surprisingly, Pinterest's earnings miss occurred despite its user base growing faster than anticipated. The company reported a 12% year-over-year increase in monthly active users, reaching 619 million, surpassing Wall Street's forecast of 613 million users.
Consequently, shares of the company dropped 20% in after-hours trading.
Pinterest has long grappled with the challenge of converting its high platform usage into advertising revenue, as its users typically engage with the site for inspiration and planning rather than direct shopping and purchasing. This inherent difficulty could become even more pronounced in the AI era, especially if advertisers opt to shift their budgets to platforms where consumer purchase intent is clearer, such as chatbot requests for product recommendations.
When questioned about how Pinterest plans to navigate the transition towards AI-powered shopping, Ready highlighted the company’s visual search, discovery, and personalization features. He explained that these capabilities are designed to guide users to relevant products as soon as they open the app.
“We’re helping them complete those commercial journeys without having to type in a single prompt,” he stated, also noting the benefit of an easier checkout flow stemming from Pinterest's partnership with Amazon. Ready acknowledged that customers do not yet seem ready to allow AI to make purchases on their behalf, but affirmed Pinterest's preparedness should that time arrive.
“That’ll actually be one of the easiest parts of the commercial journey to solve,” he confidently claimed.
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