new york
—
Abigail Wendling, 23, uses Pinterest to curate everything in her life, from recipes to wallpaper. At least, until I found a one-eyed cat while looking for wallpaper. In another example, a search for healthy recipes turned up a cryptic image of cooked chicken slices sprinkled with seasonings.
These posts were created by generative AI, which is rapidly overtaking photo-first platforms. Pinterest, like other social media platforms, has been grappling with a ton of AI slop ever since it introduced ChatGPT’s Sora video generation tool in 2024. The company has taken active steps to suppress content from users who don’t want it.
But the presence of generative AI resonated with Pinterest’s creative community, where users told CNN they felt like their voices weren’t being heard even as the company’s executives were committed to the burgeoning technology.
“It makes me want to put down my phone and do something else,” said Wendling, who also uses Instagram and TikTok. “Of all the social media apps I use right now, I think Pinterest has the most AI-generated photos and videos. Everything now has to be put under a microscope.”
Addressing AI head-on was a top priority for Pinterest CEO Bill Ready, who took over the company in 2022. The former Venmo and Braintree leader rebranded Pinterest from a “window shopping platform” to an “AI-powered visual-first shopping assistant” during his latest earnings call this month. It’s not alone. Pinterest is working with Google, OpenAI, and Amazon to help transform the online shopping experience with AI.
Pinterest has 600 million monthly active users worldwide, half of whom are Gen Z, many of whom use Pinterest for shopping inspiration. The company’s third quarter revenue recently reached $1 billion, an increase of 17% year over year.
Artificial intelligence is a technology that Silicon Valley is rushing to adapt and monetize, and is “at the heart of the Pinterest experience,” he said.
What this means for Pinterest users is the stress of trying to navigate AI slop, more ads on the platform, and less content to watch, users told CNN.
Amber Thurman, a 41-year-old Pinterest user from Illinois, told CNN, “I want to see art that people put time and effort into creating, not cleavage that someone typed a few words into an image generator and spit out.”
Over the past year, Pinterest has been responding to user complaints. Last month, the company rolled out a “tuner” that allows users to adjust the amount of AI content they want to see, and earlier this year it was among the first to label Gen AI images on its platform.
“While many people enjoy GenAI content on Pinterest, we know that some people don’t want to see much of it,” a Pinterest spokesperson said in an email to CNN, adding, “Pinterest prioritizes high-quality content and inspiration for our users, whether it’s generated by AI or not.”
But Pinterest users who spoke to CNN said they were no longer able to recognize the apps they had signed up for, and argued that the platform hasn’t kept up with the volume of AI content that flows every day. They argue that tools to limit AI are not enough.
“No platform has the ability to accurately capture 100% of what is being generated by AI,” Reddy said on the earnings call.
Pinterest once served as a haven for fast-talking comments on TikTok, status updates from former classmates on Instagram, and relatives discussing politics on Facebook.
Founder Ben Silverman told CNN in 2019 that the platform’s main goal is to inspire users. User-curated mood boards and pinned cookie recipes. Creatives and artists flock to the app for real-life design inspiration.
But in 2025, tech giants are racing to leverage technology that some are calling as influential as smartphones and the internet itself. That includes finding new ways to monetize. For example, AI.Meta will soon start using users’ conversations with its AI assistant to inform targeted ads.
For Pinterest, its future lies in AI-powered shopping. Its algorithms accurately identify your products based on your searches within the app.
The number of people who clicked on advertiser links rose 40% year-over-year in the most recent quarter, according to the company’s earnings report, and has increased more than five times over the past three years. The company is doubling down on its momentum by introducing more AI features, including a shopping assistant that users can talk to as “best friends,” the company said.
But some longtime users aren’t buying Pinterest for shopping ads.
Haley Cole, a 31-year-old creative director from California, recently started using Pinterest competitor Cosmos for design inspiration. She said she has never purchased anything from the platform and is concerned that Pinterest’s AI content is stealing intellectual property. Pinterest’s policy states that we will terminate the accounts of people who repeatedly infringe copyright or intellectual property.
“I’ve heard the CEO say[Pinterest is a shopping app]but I don’t know where he came up with that idea…I think he just envisioned it or realized it,” Cole said.
Wenring said she worries about Pinterest’s credibility. She said there’s so much fake content on the platform that even if you find something you like, you’ll likely go elsewhere to buy it.
José Marichal, a political science professor at California Lutheran University, told CNN that users will have to “bear both” of slop and new technology as companies work to monetize the technology.
Pinterest leaders certainly do.
Over time, Reddy said, AI will follow a similar trajectory to Photoshop. “Almost every piece of content you see will have been edited by AI in at least some way.”
But that approach can jeopardize the sense of authenticity that brings users to the platform in the first place.
AI-generated posts are often directed to off-platform websites that benefit from affiliate marketing, Casey Fiessler, an associate professor of information science at the University of Colorado Boulder, told CNN.
For example, if you search for “chocolate chip cookie recipe” on Pinterest, you’ll see photos of the dessert. The post linked to another site full of ads and featuring AI-generated images of chefs. The recipe itself was an almost exact match to a ChatGPT query for “Best Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe Ever.”
What users can control on algorithm-driven social media sites is their own engagement with AI content. Fiessler said even leaving a hateful comment or sending it as a joke to a friend can send a signal to the algorithm that it wants to see more of that content.
Media literacy is also more important than ever, as users need to sniff out problems themselves.
“These platforms are trying to capture short-term metrics, but they’re degrading the user experience and long-term trust,” said Tony Sampson, a senior research fellow at the University of Essex.
So far, users who spoke to CNN are using Pinterest less. Some people migrate to newer apps like Cosmos, while others return to older sites like Tumblr.
“I think it makes people a little sad, especially on something like Pinterest,” Fiessler said. “Before, we were seeing a lot of human-created content that was inspirational, but now we just see a lot of content that is not human and probably not inspirational.”
