New York, February 13, 2026, 14:43 EST — Regular session
Pinterest shares tumbled roughly 18% to $15.23 in Friday afternoon action, having earlier plunged to $13.87 during the session.
Selling accelerated worries about just how vulnerable smaller ad platforms are if major retailers cut spending. Investors, still banking on “AI-driven” ad tools to deliver growth, haven’t been generous to anything that smells like it’s falling behind.
Pinterest is looking for first-quarter revenue to land between $951 million and $971 million, coming up short of the $980.1 million Wall Street was looking for, based on LSEG figures. Chief Financial Officer Julia Donnelly pointed out that “many of the largest retailers” are cutting back on ad spending as tariffs eat into their margins. The company has been rolling out its AI-driven Performance+ ad offering and recently hired Lee Brown from Spotify’s ad business, along with longtime Amazon exec Claudine Cheever, hoping to sharpen its marketing efforts. 1
Pinterest posted a 14% jump in fourth-quarter revenue, reaching $1.319 billion. For the full year 2025, revenue came in at $4.222 billion. Global monthly active users touched 619 million. CEO Bill Ready highlighted “more than 80 billion monthly searches,” emphasizing the company’s push to use AI for better visual search and shopping discovery.
Things have only gotten rougher. Pinterest shares dropped to levels not seen since the 2020 pandemic slump, Reuters reported, as rivals ramp up—OpenAI has started testing ads in ChatGPT, and Google’s weaving shopping tools right into AI-driven search and its Gemini bot. “Pinterest is constrained by legacy monetization models amid a rapidly evolving AI landscape,” Lenny Zephirin, CEO of Zephirin Group, told Reuters. Bernstein analysts added, “We’ll probably see AI-powered Pinterest clones from Meta, OpenAI, and Amazon soon.” At least 24 brokerages have slashed their price targets. Pinterest now trades at about 9.49 times forward earnings, compared to Snap’s 9.42, Reddit’s hefty 29.99 and Meta’s 21.41—multiples that show how much investors are shelling out per dollar of profit. 2
Still, one risk stands out: should tariff uncertainty keep retailers cautious through March, advertising budgets could shrink further, and Pinterest’s guidance range might prove too optimistic. That would likely mean downgrades and target cuts keep coming.
The nagging concern persists: AI tools could reshape product discovery and shift control of customer funnels. When major platforms roll creation, targeting, and checkout into a single package, smaller firms may find themselves scrambling for scraps.
Pinterest isn’t banking on runaway ad growth for stability. What really matters: a clearer signal from retailers and some proof that Performance+ is lifting advertiser returns. That alone might ease the pace of estimate trims and quiet things down on the tape.
Monday’s Presidents Day holiday shutters U.S. stock markets, extending the weekend for investors sizing up the latest outlook shift. Trading picks back up on Tuesday. 3
February 20 brings the next big data point: the Commerce Department’s personal consumption expenditures price index report, a potential catalyst for shifting rate bets and sentiment around ad-linked stocks. Traders are also bracing for fresh broker note revisions as the first quarter picks up. 4
