Pinterest Presents 2026 is officially wrapped, and Pinterest packed a lot into the event. We got new AI tools, advertising updates, changes to Pinterest Performance+, creator features, some pretty wild usage statistics, and four holiday trends that small businesses can actually start thinking about now.
There was also a very clear message running through almost everything Pinterest showed. The company does not want to be thought of as just an inspiration platform anymore. Pinterest wants to be a visual search and shopping engine. They want people to discover what they want, make a decision, and take action.
I watched the full Pinterest Presents 2026 event, so you don’t have to sit through the whole thing yourself. Here are the announcements, stats, and updates I thought were actually worth paying attention to.
What Pinterest Wants Businesses to Understand in 2026
Pinterest CEO Bill Ready opened Pinterest Presents 2026. He talked about AI, but his bigger point was really about what Pinterest wants technology to accomplish. They no longer want to keep people staring at a screen. Instead, Pinterest says it wants AI to help people move from an idea to an action. That might mean finding an outfit, redecorating a room, planning a trip, or deciding what product to buy. Ready described the goal as building technology that feels “useful, personal and human.” That theme came up over and over throughout the event.
Pinterest has deliberately moved away from chasing time spent on the platform and toward what it calls “time well spent.” The idea is that success doesn’t necessarily mean keeping somebody scrolling for another hour. Success can also mean helping them find what they needed so they can go do something with it.
Pinterest Now Has 640 Million Monthly Users
One of the biggest numbers Pinterest shared was its current audience size. Pinterest says 640 million people now use the platform every month. It has reached record user levels for 12 consecutive quarters.
Gen Z now makes up more than half of Pinterest’s audience and is both its largest and fastest-growing demographic. That alone challenges the idea that Pinterest is mainly a platform for an older audience.
More Than 80 Billion Searches Happen Every Month
The search numbers were even more interesting to me. Pinterest says users now make roughly 80 billion searches every month. The vast majority of those searches are visual, more than half are commercial, and more than 96% are unbranded. That discovery behavior is a big part of why Pinterest can still be worth paying attention to for small businesses. I broke that down in more detail in my article on whether Pinterest marketing is worth it for business.
That 96% number may be the most important one for smaller businesses. If most Pinterest searches don’t include a brand name, people are showing up knowing the general type of thing they want without necessarily knowing who they want to buy it from. This creates an opportunity to get discovered before the shopper has picked a brand. Pinterest Presents 2026 kept referring to this as the point where people are deciding what to try, buy, or do next.
What This Means as a Seller
For a smaller seller, that’s actually pretty encouraging. You don’t have to wait until everybody knows your shop name before Pinterest can send somebody your way. Which is good, because “become a household name first” would be a pretty crappy marketing strategy, lol.
Pinterest Says People Are Tired of Constant Scrolling
Chief Marketing Officer Claudine Cheever expanded on the offline theme with some pretty interesting search data. Pinterest says searches for analog things to do and dumb phones have more than doubled. Even more striking, Gen Z searches for things to do instead of scrolling are up more than 350% year over year. Cheever also shared that 40% of Gen Z says they wish social media had never been invented. That’s a hell of a statistic coming from a generation that grew up with social media.
Pinterest’s argument is that this isn’t simply about reducing screen time. People are looking for more of the experiences that screen time has replaced. Things that happen away from their phones, like hobbies, travel, creativity, and nature. For marketers, Cheever described the opportunity as moving from simply capturing attention to igniting intention. Lots of little catchphrases were dropped during Pinterest Presents 2026, lol.
Pinterest Is Built for the “Messy Middle”
Another phrase that came up was the “messy middle”. This is the period between knowing you want something and actually deciding what it is. Maybe you know you want to redo a room but don’t know what style you want. Maybe you’re looking for a dress but don’t have the words to describe the exact look in your head. Pinterest believes that’s where its search and recommendation system has an advantage.
Every search, save, board, and interaction gives Pinterest more information about someone’s taste. Instead of only showing more of the exact thing someone searched for, Pinterest surfaces adjacent ideas that fit the search. For us ecommerce sellers, that’s valuable. It means you may have a chance to get discovered before the customer has settled on exactly what they’re buying.
Pinterest Assistant Brings AI Into Shopping and Discovery
One of the biggest announcements at Pinterest Presents 2026 was Pinterest Assistant. Pinterest Chief Product and Technology Officer Matt Madrigal described it best. It’s an AI-powered experience designed for more complicated, multi-step shopping and discovery decisions.
You might start with an outfit you saved and ask Pinterest Assistant to help complete the look. Or you could upload a photo of a room and use your saved Pinterest inspiration to explore how that style could work in your actual space.
Pinterest built Assistant to do more than act like a generic chatbot. It can use images, conversation, your saves, and Pinterest’s understanding of your taste to help narrow down what you’re looking for.
Pinterest Assistant Can Make the Results Shoppable
They also demonstrated Pinterest Assistant by taking a photo of a real vanity and using a saved Pinterest board as inspiration to redesign it. The interesting part came after the new look was created. The mirror, sink, tile, lighting, and other items shown in the result could all be shoppable. Pinterest’s presentation made it almost impossible for me to capture a good side-by-side comparison image. It did demonstrate how Pinterest Assistant could be useful, though. Of course, this also means Pinterest Assistant could potentially turn “I wonder what my bathroom would look like with a new mirror” into a $2,000 shopping trip in about 30 seconds. So there’s that lol.
That gives us a much clearer idea of where Pinterest seems to be heading with AI. It doesn’t just want AI to create inspiration. It wants that inspiration connected to real products that somebody can buy.
What This Means as a Seller
Pinterest Assistant could make product discovery even more visual and conversational. It helps shoppers build complete looks, rooms, gift ideas, or other collections around what they like. Having clear product images and listings Pinterest can understand may become even more important. This is one I’ll definitely be watching as the feature rolls out..
Pinterest Intelligence Powers the Experience
Behind all of this is something Pinterest calls Pinterest Intelligence. Pinterest combines first-party data, recommendation systems, visual understanding technology, and AI models built specifically around how people use Pinterest. That includes understanding the content itself, recognizing very specific taste clusters, and adjusting as someone’s interests change.
Pinterest’s argument is that generic AI may be good at answering a question once somebody knows exactly what they want. Pinterest is trying to become better at the moment before that, when somebody is still figuring it out. That can present more opportunities for us sellers.
Pinterest Is Doubling Down on Performance and Advertising
Another major theme of Pinterest Presents 2026 was Pinterest’s attempt to reposition itself as a performance platform. Pinterest Chief Business Officer Lee Brown said clicks from Pinterest to advertisers have grown five times over the last three years. The company spent a lot of time showing new advertising tools meant to move Pinterest farther down the funnel from inspiration and awareness into traffic, customer acquisition, and conversions.
Visual Search Ads Are Coming
Pinterest announced Visual Search Ads, which are expected to enter beta in all ad-eligible markets. These ads will appear during high-intent moments on Pinterest search pages and in Pin close-ups. Businesses will be able to send people directly to their websites using campaign assets they already have, without having to create an entirely separate set of creatives just for the format. That makes visual search itself another potential paid placement.
New Customer Acquisition
Pinterest announced several updates to Pinterest Performance+, including New Customer Acquisition, Priority Products, and globally available interest and keyword suggestions. New Customer Acquisition lets advertisers tell Pinterest which people are already customers and assign additional value to reaching somebody new. Pinterest Performance+ can then optimize campaigns toward those higher-value new customers.
Priority Products
Priority Products gives advertisers more control over which products Pinterest should emphasize from a catalog. A business could prioritize a holiday collection, a new launch, or another important product group while still allowing the rest of the catalog to run. Pinterest said Priority Products became globally available on September 15.
Interest and Keyword Suggestions
Interest and keyword suggestions are also now globally available, giving advertisers another way to guide Pinterest’s algorithm toward relevant audiences. Pinterest highlighted Australian fashion retailer Princess Polly as one example of Performance+ results. They said the company achieved a 21X increase in ROAS and a 70% reduction in cost per acquisition.
Obviously, that’s one advertiser and not a result everybody should expect. But it does show the kind of performance Pinterest is trying to associate with the platform.
A/B Testing Is Now Self-Serve
Pinterest also made A/B testing fully self-serve inside Pinterest Ads Manager across all ad-eligible markets. Advertisers no longer have to depend on Pinterest staff to manually set up those tests. This should make it much easier to experiment with campaigns and make adjustments based on actual results. Honestly, I don’t understand why they did the manual set-up in the first place. It’s good to see that advertisers will have more control with this.
App Promotion Is Expanding
Pinterest’s App Promotion advertising is currently in beta and is expected to become globally available by the end of 2026. The campaigns can be used to acquire new app users, drive in-app actions, and re-engage existing customers.
Pinterest is also expanding connected TV advertising. Brands can now run standalone CTV campaigns. They said adding connected TV to Spotlight buys can increase potential reach by up to 75%.
Pinterest Business Assistant Is Now in Beta
Pinterest also gave us an update on Business Assistant, an AI-powered tool built into Pinterest Ads Manager. Business Assistant is now in beta in multiple markets, with more countries and languages expected before the end of the year.
The idea is pretty straightforward: instead of digging through campaign data trying to figure out what happened, advertisers can use Business Assistant to understand performance and identify possible adjustments. For a large advertising team, that may save time. For a small business owner who doesn’t have an advertising analyst sitting around all day (or, you know, an entire advertising department hiding in the spare bedroom) it could be considerably more useful.
Pinterest MCP Will Connect Pinterest to Other AI Tools
One of the more technical announcements was Pinterest MCP. Pinterest described MCP as a standardized, secure way to connect Pinterest data, campaigns, and workflows to outside AI tools businesses are already using. Instead of building custom integrations every time a company wants Pinterest data inside another AI workflow, Pinterest MCP is intended to act as the translation layer between the two. Pinterest MCP is expected to enter beta soon.
This one probably won’t be the first Pinterest Presents 2026 announcement most small businesses rush out to use, but it’s one I’ll be keeping an eye on because the possibilities could get interesting once we know exactly which tools can connect to it and what those connections can do.
More Pinterest Performance+ Creative Tools Are Coming
Pinterest Presents 2026 also announced several creative optimization updates. CTA Optimization is globally available, while Title Optimization is currently in beta in the United States. Pinterest also introduced Smart Assembly, which brings Pinterest Performance+ Creative to advertisers without a product catalog for the first time. The larger idea is to let Pinterest automatically adjust more pieces of an ad based on what appears to be working.
Pinterest Says Collage Ads Can Cut CPM and CPC
Pinterest continues to push Collage Ads, which are designed to fit more naturally into the way people already discover visual ideas on Pinterest. During Pinterest Presents 2026, Pinterest said Collage Ads have reduced median CPM and CPC by more than one-third. They also announced that Max-Width Collections are now globally available, giving advertisers a full-width format intended to make product discovery and shopping more immersive.
Pinterest is also testing Premiere Spotlight Category Takeover in the U.S., with expansion into selected additional markets expected by the end of the year. It’s a new high-visibility ad option designed for big moments like product launches and major events. It gives advertisers reserved placement within relevant Pinterest categories instead of relying only on normal auction-based delivery.
Pinterest Is Putting More Emphasis on Expert Creators
Pinterest’s David Brinker also spent time talking about the changing creator economy. His argument was that the internet has become so noisy that simply being loud or popular isn’t enough. Credibility matters.
Pinterest says that when Pinners were asked whose product recommendations they value most, professionals and experts ranked first. They also stated that more than 80% of Pinners feel Pinterest content is informed by expert opinions. That includes creators who are also stylists, chefs, designers, makeup artists, and other professionals with real experience in the subjects they’re talking about.
Amazon Storefront Linking Is Coming to Pinterest Creators
Pinterest is also making Amazon affiliate content easier. Creators can connect an Amazon storefront to Pinterest and tag Amazon products directly in their Pins. Pinterest says the affiliate link is then applied automatically instead of requiring the creator to manually add it to every Pin. If you’re already using Amazon’s affiliate program, that’s a pretty practical update. It may not be the sexiest announcement of Pinterest Presents 2026, but eliminating a little copy-and-paste nonsense is the kind of update I can get behind.
Pinterest also confirmed another season of Bring My Pinterest to Life, its series where creators turn Pinterest boards into real rooms, wardrobes, looks, and businesses. Pinterest said title sponsors from the previous season received more than 45 million added-value impressions, and the next season is scheduled to arrive on Roku in spring 2027.
What This Means as a Seller
This is another sign that Pinterest is leaning harder into shopping and product recommendations. Even if you’re not an Amazon creator, it’s worth paying attention to how Pinterest is connecting content directly to products. The easier Pinterest makes that path from inspiration to purchase, the more important it becomes for sellers to have useful, shoppable content on the platform.
What Samsung and Levi’s Results Show
Pinterest Presents 2026 brought Noelle Perez, Head of Media Partnerships and Commerce at Samsung Electronics America, and Anne Cambria, VP of Global Marketing at Levi’s, on stage to share real-world examples of how their brands are using Pinterest. I don’t think most small business owners need every detail of those campaigns, but a few of the results were worth noting.
Samsung said a foldable-phone campaign connected to a Spider-Man movie partnership delivered more than five times the industry benchmark for mid-funnel performance. Another Samsung campaign for its Circle to Search feature reportedly achieved about a 25% completion rate, which the company said was roughly three to four times higher than the platform benchmark.
Levi’s shared a different example that may actually be more useful for smaller businesses. The company said Pinterest search data showed loose jeans were the number-one denim style people were searching for, while interest in low-rise styles was roughly three times higher than high-waisted styles. Levi’s used that information as part of its “Low Loose” fall campaign.
That’s a good reminder that Pinterest doesn’t only have to be somewhere you promote a product after you’ve already decided what to make or sell. Search behavior can also give you clues about what people are starting to want.
Pinterest Says Last-Click Measurement May Undervalue the Platform
Pinterest also devoted a section to measurement, with Trevor Testweed, CEO of Measured. The basic argument was that last-click attribution leaves out too much of the customer journey. A final click can tell you where somebody was immediately before making a purchase, but it doesn’t necessarily tell you what introduced them to the product, what built their interest, or what influenced the eventual decision.
Testweed argued for more incrementality testing by using test-and-control experiments to determine whether advertising actually caused additional sales or other outcomes that wouldn’t have happened without it. Measured reviewed 70 recent Pinterest incrementality tests across its clients.
According to Testweed, when Pinterest is working well, it can perform 2X, 3X, or even 4X better than last-touch attribution suggests. He also said Pinterest ranked at the top among view-based social platforms in average incremental ROAS for the group of brands Measured tested.
The takeaway isn’t that everyone should suddenly throw more money at Pinterest advertising. It’s that judging any marketing channel only by the last click can give you a very incomplete picture of what it’s actually contributing.
Four Pinterest Holiday Trends for 2026
This may have been the most immediately useful section of Pinterest Presents 2026 for product sellers heading into Q4. Pinterest says 88% of the trend predictions it has made over the past six years have come true. For the 2026 holiday season, the company identified four trends based on what people are searching for and saving on Pinterest.
The Trinket Effect
The Trinket Effect is about small extras that make something feel more personal. Pinterest Presents 2026 pointed to decorated gift bags and boxes, embellished accessories, charms, mini gifts, stocking stuffers, and other small details that can make a bigger statement.
For sellers, I don’t think the lesson here is “go create a pile of tiny products because Pinterest said so.” You may already sell something that works as a smaller gift or stocking stuffer. The opportunity could simply be changing how you photograph, describe, bundle, or position it for holiday shoppers.
Artful Entertaining
Artful Entertaining is centered around making hosting itself part of the holiday experience. Pinterest highlighted styled coffee stations, home minibars, memorable host gifts, elevated accessories, and comfortable but polished loungewear.
This one covers a pretty wide range of products, including home decor, kitchen items, drinkware, serving pieces, apparel, and gifts. The bigger idea is that shoppers aren’t only thinking about the party. They’re thinking about how the entire experience looks and feels.
Glow Coded
Glow Coded focuses on self-care during a busy holiday season. Pinterest is seeing interest in skincare and beauty tools, upgraded everyday rituals, and comfortable at-home experiences like pajama parties. There’s obviously a gifting angle here, but there’s also room for the person buying a little something for themselves while they’re supposed to be shopping for everybody else. I think most of us know that shopper pretty well.
For ecommerce sellers, this could work especially well for products that make everyday routines feel a little more special. Think cozy accessories, beauty and skincare products, candles, bath items, sleepwear, drinkware, or anything that fits into a “treat yourself” moment.
The Great Offline
The Great Offline may be the trend that best sums up Pinterest Presents 2026 as a whole. Pinterest says people are increasingly interested in activities that give them a reason to put down the phone and do something in real life. For the holidays, that includes adventure, fitness, outdoor activities, puzzles, games, and other things people can do together offline.
Earlier in the event, Pinterest said Gen Z searches for things to do instead of scrolling were up more than 350% year over year. So The Great Offline looks less like a random holiday theme and more like part of the larger shift Pinterest believes is happening. And considering how heavily they built the entire Pinterest Presents 2026 presentation around getting people off their screens and back into real life, this is clearly a trend they feel strongly about. It’s not just a seasonal idea they expect to disappear after the holidays.
There is something slightly funny about sitting through a multi-hour online Pinterest event where one of the biggest messages is that we should all spend less time staring at screens, lol. But to their credit, they were very committed to the bit!
For ecommerce sellers, The Great Offline could show up in a lot of different ways. Think products tied to hobbies, outdoor activities, game nights, puzzles, journaling, crafts, travel, fitness, gardening, cooking, or anything that helps people spend more time doing something instead of scrolling. Even if the product itself isn’t “offline,” the marketing angle can be showing how it fits into a real-world moment, activity, or experience.
How Small Businesses Can Use These Pinterest Trends
Pinterest’s advice was to use these trends when deciding which products to feature, how to photograph them, and what messaging to build around them. I think that’s the right way for a small business to approach these trends. You don’t need to redesign your entire product line every time Pinterest Predicts announces something new. Look at what you already sell first. You may already have products that fit one of these themes and simply need to present them in a way that connects with what shoppers are searching for. With Q4 right around the corner, these holiday trends are probably among the easiest Pinterest Presents 2026 announcements to start experimenting with immediately.
What This Means as a Seller
You don’t need to redesign your whole shop around these trends. Start with what you already sell. A mug might fit Artful Entertaining. A small gift could fit The Trinket Effect. Something tied to hobbies or offline activities could fit The Great Offline. Sometimes the opportunity is less about creating something new and more about changing the way you photograph, describe, or promote what you already have.
My Takeaways From Pinterest Presents 2026
The 2026 Pinterest Presents closed with four ideas it wanted businesses to remember.
- The audience is growing.
- Pinterest is becoming a visual search and shopping engine.
- The company wants to be seen as a performance platform.
- Pinterest believes people increasingly want technology that helps them get back to real life instead of consuming more of it
After sitting through the whole event, I think that summary is pretty accurate. The biggest shift isn’t any single advertising feature or AI announcement. Pinterest is trying to redefine what the platform actually is. It doesn’t want to be another social network competing to see who can keep you scrolling the longest. It wants to own that messy space between “I think I want something” and “that’s exactly what I was looking for.”
What Matters Most for Small Businesses
For small businesses, that makes the 80 billion monthly searches, the 96% unbranded search figure, Pinterest Assistant, and the holiday trend data the pieces I would pay the most attention to.
Pinterest Assistant could eventually change how shoppers discover products by connecting conversational AI, visual inspiration, and shoppable products. The unbranded-search number reinforces why Pinterest SEO and strong visual content still matter. And the holiday trends give sellers something they can actually start testing now instead of waiting for some future feature rollout.
There were plenty of announcements at Pinterest Presents 2026 that are much more relevant to large advertisers than they are to somebody running a small Etsy shop or ecommerce business. That’s fine. We don’t have to use every shiny new thing Pinterest announces, lol. The useful part is figuring out where Pinterest is going and whether any of those changes create an opportunity for your business.
And after Pinterest Presents 2026, the direction is pretty clear. Pinterest wants to become much better at helping people figure out what they want… and then helping them buy it.
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