Pinterest Sees Visual Search Working in Tandem with Text Search

An interview with:
Omar Seyal
Head of Discovery Product
Pinterest

Pinterest now sees 600 million visual searches per month on its platform and has developed a suite of visual search tools for its users. eMarketer's Yory Wurmser spoke with Omar Seyal, Pinterest's head of discovery product, about what the platform has gathered from consumer visual search behavior. This interview was conducted as part of our upcoming report "Visual Search 2018: New Tools from Pinterest, eBay, Google and Amazon Increase Accuracy, Utility."

eMarketer:

How has Pinterest’s strategy for visual search evolved over the past year or two?

Omar Seyal:

Our core strategy hasn't changed too much. We're still helping people explore their interests through visual objects or pictures.

We have matured, to some extent, in how we think about these things. For instance, we've started using visual symbols more inside of search results. So, say you search for something like home décor. We'll use visual signals to make sure you see a breadth of home décor aesthetics. Or if you search for hairstyles, we now give users the ability to filter and narrow particular skin tones. So the overall strategy hasn't changed much, but we've continued to layer these kinds of visual bricks on top of the system.

Interview conducted on August 1, 2018

"Behind the Numbers" Podcast