Pinterest is planning to lay off hundreds of workers and reduce its office space to reallocate resources for its artificial intelligence initiatives. In a regulatory filing posted Tuesday, Pinterest says the reduction is expected to impact “less than 15 percent” of its current workforce, and that the layoffs should be complete by September 30th, 2026.
Pinterest cuts workforce by around 15 percent to focus on AI
Up to 700 employees are set to be laid off by September 30th.
Up to 700 employees are set to be laid off by September 30th.
is a news writer focused on creative industries, computing, and internet culture. Jess started her career at TechRadar, covering news and hardware reviews.
Pinterest said it had 4,666 full-time employees as of the end of 2024, which would mean around 700 staffers are impacted by today’s announcement. The document said these changes are to support three “transformation initiatives,” with two of them connected to AI:
- Reallocating resources to AI-focused roles and teams that drive AI adoption and execution
- Prioritizing AI‑powered products and capabilities
- Accelerating the transformation of its sales and go-to-market approach
Off the back of these changes, Pinterest is set to incur pre-tax restructuring charges of approximately $35 million to $45 million.
“We are making organizational changes to further deliver on our AI-forward strategy, which includes hiring AI-proficient talent,” Pinterest spokesperson Tessa Chen said in a statement to The Verge. “As a result, we’ve made the difficult decision to say goodbye to some of our team members. We are grateful for their service and supporting them with separation packages and benefits.”
The deluge of AI-generated content on Pinterest has been criticized by users — enough so to prompt the company into making features that detect AI images and see less of it in feeds — but that hasn’t deterred Pinterest from injecting the technology across its platform. In October, it released an AI Pinterest Shopping assistant that provides personalized recommendations. The following month, Pinterest CEO Bill Ready said that “our investments in AI and product innovation are paying off,” and that the platform had effectively become “an AI-powered shopping assistant for 600 million consumers.”
Update, January 27th: Added statement from Pinterest.
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