Pinterest to cut 15 per cent of jobs amid increased AI focus

Social media service Pinterest is to cut 15 per cent of jobs as it channels more resources into its artificial intelligence (AI) initiatives.

Pinterest is to cut its workforce by 15 per cent to focus on artificial intelligence (AI).

The social media service is planning to lay off hundreds of workers and reduce office space to reallocate resources for its AI initiatives.

In a regulatory filing posted on Tuesday (27.01.26), Pinterest stated that the reduction is expected to impact “less that 15 per cent” of its current workforce and that the layoffs should be complete by the end of September.

The site said it had 4,666 full-time employees as of the end of 2024, meaning that around 700 staff members will be impacted by the announcement.

The documents say that the changes are being made to support the company’s “transformation initiatives” of reallocating resources to AI-focused roles and teams that drive AI adoption and execution, as well as prioritising AI-powered products and capabilities.

The increase in AI-generated content on Pinterest has faced criticism from users to the extent that it prompted the company to make features that detect AI images – although the site itself hasn’t been deterred from using the tech.

In October, it released an AI Pinterest Shopping assistant that provides personalised recommendations.

The following month, Pinterest CEO Bill Ready declared that “our investments in AI and product innovation are paying off” and that the platform had become “an AI-powered shopping assistant for 600 million consumers”.

He said: “Pinterest has been at the forefront of visual search and has helped create an entirely new way in which users discover, explore their taste and ultimately shop.

“As we have significantly improved the relevance and personalisation of our content using AI, we’ve become a destination for our users to explore their expansive set of commercial journeys.

“If we look at what’s happening on our platform already, we’re able to take the user much further down that shopping journey, assisting them, as I mentioned, with the relevancy of our recommendations that’s effectively taking the user much further down the shopping journey without them having to do the work.”

Ready added: “It’s abundantly clear that Pinterest is an AI winner. We’ve never been more popular or valued by our users and more performant for our advertisers.”