Pinterest's Pivot: How CEO Bill Ready Is Turning Record User Growth Into a Shopping Revolution

Pinterest’s Bill Ready Steers Platform to Shopping Destination Amid Mixed Q1 Results

Pinterest CEO Bill Ready expressed confidence in the company’s outlook despite mixed first-quarter results, highlighting record-high user numbers and increased engagement during a CNBC interview with Julia Boorstin.

“We are at all-time highs on users and engagement per user. And at the core of that is that we have made Pinterest a shopping destination,” Ready told CNBC. “Pinterest is where Gen-Z goes to shop now, and that’s delivering great results for our advertisers.”

The visual discovery platform reported 16% revenue growth for Q1 2025 and issued a strong second-quarter revenue outlook, according to the company’s earnings release published via Business Wire. This optimistic guidance comes despite some uncertainty in the broader retail landscape.

When questioned about potential weakness in the advertising market, particularly regarding Asian retailers and possible tariff impacts, Ready acknowledged some adjustments from cross-border sellers but remained optimistic about consumer resilience.

“We went through a major supply chain disruption just a few years ago with the pandemic. Consumers were resilient. They’ll find other things to shop for. And Pinterest is the place that they go to do it,” Ready explained to CNBC.

Central to Pinterest’s strategy is its AI implementation, which Ready described as a “core competency” for the company. The platform’s unique data from users planning purchases and curating collections has helped develop what Ready calls their “taste graph,” which has grown 75% over the past two years.

“Our new multimodal visual search model outperforms by 30% off-the-shelf models because of that unique signal,” Ready noted during the earnings call, as reported by CNBC. This proprietary AI capability enables Pinterest to provide highly personalized experiences where “users say, ‘Oh, Pinterest just gets me.'”

The AI advantages extend to advertisers as well. “We’ve more than doubled the relevancy of our ads over the last two years,” Ready stated. “That means we’re making the ads great content for users and helping advertisers meet users in moments where the ads are actually helpful.”

Pinterest is also leveraging AI for internal productivity, with Ready revealing that over a quarter of the company’s coding is now generated by AI—up ten percentage points from just a few months ago. This internal efficiency has contributed to expanded margins and profitability alongside record revenue.

The company’s focus on “considered purchases” rather than impulse buys appears to be resonating with users becoming “more intentional and more considerate about their purchases,” according to Ready. This strategic positioning may help insulate Pinterest from some market volatility as consumers carefully plan their spending.

As Pinterest continues its transformation into a shopping destination with AI at its core, Ready’s leadership appears focused on balancing user experience, advertiser value, and operational efficiency—a strategy that investors seem to be responding to positively despite mixed quarterly results.