Photo collection service Pinterest has added Pinterest Assistant to its app for searching for clothes, furniture and other items. It uses artificial intelligence and information about user activity to personalize responses.
Photo collection service Pinterest has added Pinterest Assistant to its app for searching for clothes, furniture and other items. It uses artificial intelligence and information about user activity to personalize responses.
Pinterest describes the assistant as a personal «stylist, interior designer, or party planner» who knows the user’s tastes well.
«For example, the query ‘I need new decorative pillows to match my living room decor’ prompts Pinterest Assistant to use your saves, boards, collages, and other content with similar tastes to suggest pillows that match your specific aesthetic preferences,» the developers explain how the new feature works.
They envision that users will primarily interact with Pinterest Assistant via the microphone icon in the Pinterest app, which will launch a voice search. The AI assistant uses voice input to filter and analyze visual content to find the best match.
«People say the magic of Pinterest is that it ‘just gets me,’ whether it’s finding the perfect outfit or knowing your unique style. With Pinterest Assistant, we’re amplifying that magic by using artificial intelligence to help our users discover and shop like they would with the person who knows them best,» said Pinterest CEO Bill Ready.
The company notes that Pinterest Assistant is trained on user data and «based on billions of signals and our own Taste-graph.» Therefore, its multimodal AI model for visual search «outperforms off-the-shelf models by over 30% in relevance of shopping recommendations.»
«Pinterest Assistant is distinguished by its visual-focused AI that uses real-time descriptive features and first-party actions to provide visual inspiration and shoppable products,» Pinterest says.
Pinterest Assistant is launching in beta for users in the US aged 18 and over, and will be available to a wider audience in the coming weeks and months.
Pinterest users have previously complained about the increasing amount of AI-generated content, making it difficult to find real things to buy or add to a board. In May, the company began labeling AI content in the app to make it easier to find real products, and in early October, it added the option to «reduce» the amount of AI-generated content.
