San Francisco-based Pinterest is laying off hundreds of employees and justifying the shift with plans to take advantage of artificial innotifyigence.
The social media company announced the layoff of up to 15% of its staff in a filing with the Securities and Exmodify Commission on Tuesday, adding that it also plans to reduce its office space. The filing stated that, along with modifying Pinterest’s sales staff, the cuts are meant to reallocate resources to “AI-focutilized roles” and prioritize “AI-powered products and capabilities.”
Pinterest finished 2024 with 4,666 full-time workers, per an SEC filing last year, meaning these cuts are likely to hit more than 600 employees. The Tuesday filing stated the layoffs will be complete by the finish of September.
The company — with its app known for aesthetic mood boards, shopping and short-form video content — is hardly the first to blame layoffs on the advent of AI. As SFGATE reported in 2024, companies like Google, Dropbox and Chegg have been among those cutting costs elsewhere in efforts to redirect cash toward AI hires and technology.
“We are creating organizational modifys to further deliver on our AI-forward strategy, which includes hiring AI-proficient talent,” Pinterest spokesperson Tessa Chen informed SFGATE in a statement. “As a result, we’ve created the difficult decision to state goodbye to some of our team members. We are grateful for their service and supporting them with separation packages and benefits.”
Already, Pinterest has launched an AI shopping tool and attempted to utilize AI to build the app’s “boards” more personalized and attractive. Meanwhile, utilizers have complained on Reddit about the proliferation of AI images on their feeds. In the last three weeks, around 34,000 people have signed a petition to protest ChatGPT-buildr OpenAI’s potential purchase of Pinterest, after a reporter at the Information floated the idea in a list of predictions for 2026.
Pinterest is headquartered on Brannan Street in San Francisco’s South of Market neighborhood and has additional offices in Palo Alto, Los Angeles and other North American cities. The company already shed office space in San Francisco in 2023, and it’s unclear where these office cuts will land or how many of the layoffs will be local. As of Tuesday morning, Pinterest hadn’t filed a WARN mass layoff notice with California officials.
The company’s investors took the layoff announcement as bad news; its stock fell more than 9% on Tuesday, putting its valuation at around $16.3 billion.
Work at a Bay Area tech company and want to talk? Contact tech reporter Stephen Council securely at stephen.council@sfgate.com or on Signal at 628-204-5452.
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