Artificial Intelligence (AI) is reshaping how people search and decide, moving the industry past the search-and-click model toward a conversational and generative future. Ahead of the recent Cannes Lions, a gathering of the creative marketing communications industry, Pinterest rolled out a new set of AI ad tools focused on three things marketers care about right now: performance, workflow efficiency, and interoperability.
The launch included:
- Business Assistant, a new AI collaborator in Ads Manager (US Beta for now).
- Pinterest Model Context Protocol (MCP), an AI-native infrastructure layer that connects Pinterest campaign, analytics, and keyword insights to the copilots and agentic tools advertisers and partners already use. Available to select partners globally.
- New Performance+ creative, a new AI model that can evaluate a broader set of creatives and identify the variant most likely to perform for each ad impression. Available globally.
- Ask Pinterest, is a new experimental app for exploring more conversational, visual-first and agentic shopping experiences (US only).
Taken together, the company said the updates reflect a broader push by the platform to embed AI across campaign management, creative, partner workflows, and discovery surfaces as the industry moves beyond traditional search.
“The future of discovery won’t be driven by keywords alone. It will be shaped by context, taste, and trusted recommendations,” said Lee Brown, Chief Business Officer, Pinterest. “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.”
The brand said it 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,” said the platform.
“We’ve also brought Business Assistant to mobile, so advertisers get proactive notifications about Trends, performance status and optimization opportunities.”
The platform said it 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, standardized 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,” it said.
The company said it is 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 analyze performance, uncover insights and act on opportunities without switching tools,” said Chris Ivey, President of Jump 450. “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.”
It said it 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 optimization from the ad level to the asset level, delivering a more personalized 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, “ it said.
“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.”
Rolling out in the US, it said Ask Pinterest is a new experimental app for exploring more conversational, visual-first and agentic shopping experiences.
Ask Pinterest brings Pinterest’s Taste Graph and the visual discovery experience beyond the core app, using the company’s proprietary signals around taste, intent and preferences to power more personalized recommendations and inspiration, it noted.
“Ask Pinterest is designed for more conversational, complex, multi-step decisions that don’t fit neatly into a single search, like planning a dinner party on a budget, finding a gift that feels truly personal, or furnishing a room over time. The experience helps us explore how AI can better support those richer shopping experiences while retaining context across sessions.
“What we learn from Ask Pinterest will help inform future AI-powered experiences across the main app.”
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