If you still think of Pinterest as the place for mood boards, DIY hacks, and dream home inspo, it’s time to shift your perspective. After joining the Pinterest Presents webinar, it’s obvious the platform is evolving fast, not just creatively, but commercially. Pinterest is stepping into a space where inspiration naturally becomes action, and where brands can reach people at the moment they’re making decisions about what to buy, wear, cook and try next.

Here’s what stood out to me and why Pinterest deserves a serious place in your 2026 digital strategies.

 interest Is No Longer Just Inspiration – It’s Intent

One of the clearest messages from CEO Bill Ready was how different the Pinterest mindset is. People don’t open the app to kill time; they arrive with a purpose. They’re planning something. It might be a room makeover, a new season wardrobe, a weekly meal plan, or ideas for hosting friends.

Pinterest’s new AI-powered “taste graph” builds on that mindset. Instead of simply suggesting content, the platform now understands why someone might like something, analysing colours, textures, styles, and even cooking cues like plating and ingredients. It can predict what will resonate long before the user even realises it themselves.

Boards, saves, and collections give Pinterest an honest view of what people actually want, not what they post for others to see. That alone makes the platform incredibly powerful for brands.

A Gen Z Platform That’s Actually Positive

Pinterest has 15.5M monthly active users in the UK, half of whom are Gen Z. They’re the most engaged audience too, which makes sense when you think about how they use the platform. Gen Z comes to Pinterest with questions and goals, from “how do I find my style?” to “what should I meal prep this week?” to “how do I decorate my first flat?”

Pinterest described itself as a place where people go to figure out who they want to be, a far cry from platforms telling them who they should be. It genuinely stands out as the least toxic place in social media, and honestly, that alone feels like a selling point.

The mindset is different here, and marketers are paying attention.

Boards: Pinterest’s Most Underrated Conversion Driver

Why Pinterest Is Quietly Becoming One of the Most Important Platforms for Brands in 2026

Boards haven’t changed much visually over the years, but Pinterest’s tech behind them has levelled up massively. When someone saves a product to a board, their likelihood of purchasing shoots up by 70%, and if that same product is promoted, it rises to around 81%.

Pinterest has started turning these saves into something more actionable, adding “where to buy” links directly on Pins and transforming board items into shoppable collages. It’s incredibly intuitive: save the ideas you love, and Pinterest quietly turns them into a guided shopping experience.

I’ve already seen this happening with recipe content, capsule wardrobe planning, and home projects. Pinterest now pulls elements from boards and places them directly into the home feed, creating highly personalised collections that brands can seamlessly appear in.

Performance+: The Feature That Changes Everything

Pinterest is no longer just an awareness platform. With Performance+, they’ve genuinely cracked the lower funnel, and this was probably the most exciting part of the entire webinar.

Campaign setup is quicker, targeting is more precise, and the platform does a lot of the optimisation automatically. It can test creative variations, learn what performs best and push the strongest assets to the top without manual intervention. It even outperformed 80% of traditional A/B tests, which is a bit insane when you think about it.

Their Trends Tool also received a huge upgrade. Pinterest trends last twice as long as those on other platforms, meaning you actually have time to build on them rather than scrambling before they fade. You can filter by age, time, region and even access predictive trends that forecast demand 90 days ahead.

For brands across beauty, lifestyle, fashion and food, this means you can plan campaigns around interest spikes; whether that’s “protein snack ideas,” “Valentine’s table décor,” or “spring home refresh.”

Partner Integrations That Make Life a Whole Lot Easier with the Correct Setup

Pinterest is integrating deeply with Shopify, Smartly, AppsFlyer, MikMak and Pear Commerce, ensuring seamless measurability from engagement through to conversion to help analyse ROI. Brands selling through retailers get a major advantage here: Pinterest’s “where to buy” links and retailer-powered checkout journeys fit perfectly with how grocery shopping is done. This gives brands the opportunity to link up to ten retail partners, as well as their own Shopify store, creating a seamless shopping journey from discovery to purchase.

But features like shopping ads, price-drop highlights and local inventory visibility aren’t instant. To unlock them, brands (or retailers) need strong product feeds, accurate stock data and well-integrated catalogues. Without that foundation, these commerce features won’t run at full capacity.

Pinterest is evolving into a really strong commerce channel, but relies heavily on quality data. When well-set up, Pinterest is brilliant at capturing those intentional, plan-driven moments that lead to purchases. But it naturally sits in a different place to the fast, culture-led platforms like Instagram and TikTok.

That’s why balance matters. Pinterest delivers strongly in long-term discovery and high-intent behaviour, but shines brightest when it’s supported by channels that drive reach, hype and immediacy.

So, What Should Brands Actually Do With This?

Why Pinterest Is Quietly Becoming One of the Most Important Platforms for Brands in 2026

First, get the foundations right. Your catalogue, tracking and conversion API need to be optimised; these signals fuel everything Pinterest’s AI can do.

Then, turn on Performance+. It’s the quickest way to access smarter targeting and stronger results without adding extra workload.

From there, focus on creatives that genuinely help people: tutorials, before-and-afters, step-by-steps and ideas people can save and return to. Pinterest is at its best when brands lean into usefulness rather than heavy branding.

And finally, use the Trends Tool. Pinterest is one of the few platforms where you can see what people will want, not just what they’re engaging with now. Whether that’s seasonal moments, lifestyle shifts or upcoming cultural peaks, Pinterest gives brands an early advantage.

The real takeaway? Pinterest has its own unique strengths, high intent, discovery features, and exceptional planning behaviour, and brands that understand how to use those strengths properly will see the biggest benefit.

 Final Thoughts

Pinterest feels refreshingly different from other major platforms, intentional, positive and driven by genuine user needs. Because users arrive with intent, brands that show up with the right content at the right moment win.

What stood out from Pinterest Presents this year is just how quickly the platform is maturing to meet intent. Smarter AI, stronger commerce tools, upgraded trend insights and deeper integrations mean Pinterest isn’t just about inspiration anymore, it’s becoming a place where intent turns into conversions you can measure.

But success depends on understanding where Pinterest fits within the bigger picture. It has distinct strengths, particularly in capturing high-intent, plan-driven behaviour – and works best when brands leverage it strategically alongside platforms that drive reach and immediacy. The brands that win on Pinterest are those that understand what the platform is for and build content that aligns with the mindset of its users

If Pinterest is on your radar and you want to explore how it fits into your wider social and paid strategy, get in touch. We’ll help you shape a smart channel mix and build content that genuinely performs, whether our audience is planning, scrolling or shopping.

Helena Strassel
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