By the Numbers

The 2023 PYMNTS Intelligence report “Apple Pay @9: The Battle for in-Store Adoption and Usage” drew from a survey of more than 2,000 United States consumers to understand their purchasing behavior.

Supplemental research from the study found that among the 39% of consumers who made an online purchase in the previous 24 hours, more than two-thirds made their most recent one from a mass merchant. Meanwhile, 18% did so from another retailer, 9% ordered food, 4% made a purchase from a grocer and marginal shares did so from convenience stores or gas stations.

Meanwhile, in brick-and-mortar, grocers win. Among the 57% of consumers who made an in-store purchase the previous day, 32% said their most recent such purchase was from a grocer, while 29% said the same of mass merchants. Fifteen percent did so from other retailers, 10% ordered food, 7% made a convenience store purchase most recently and 6% purchased a gas station.

A Deeper Dive

The PYMNTS Intelligence study “Consumer Interest in an Everyday App” underscored that consumers disproportionately shop with grocers when making in-person purchases. One-third of consumers reported shopping for groceries in physical stores or by calling, while only 17% did so for non-grocery retail items, and 29% for restaurant purchases.

Further PYMNTS Intelligence research revealed that as of April 2023, 52% of grocery shoppers made such purchases online and in person, while just 43% did so in person only and less than 6% did so purely via digital channels.

These findings highlight the divergent shopping behaviors between online and in-store consumers. While mass merchants dominate the online retail space, capturing the majority of recent purchases, brick-and-mortar consumers show a distinct preference for grocery stores. This divergence shows the importance for retailers to tailor their strategies to meet the unique demands of each shopping channel, ensuring they can effectively engage and capture their target audience wherever they choose to shop.

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The suit, filed Wednesday (July 31), accuses the ticket resale platform of drip pricing, utilizing the “deceptive and unfair” practice of concealing mandatory fees from customers and withholding information about why those fees are levied or how they’re calculated.

Drip pricing refers to a strategy where additional fees are revealed incrementally during the purchase process. It starts with a low base price but adds mandatory charges such as service fees, taxes and handling costs as customers progress through checkout. Critics note that this practice can mislead consumers about the true cost.

“StubHub’s utilization of … drip pricing has caused District consumers substantial harm — approximately $118 million in hidden, unfair fees since September 2015 alone, in addition to the countless hours of (unnecessary) time and effort they invested in a lengthy purchase flow based on false advertised prices,” the lawsuit states.

Proponents of the practice claim it reflects competitive pricing dynamics and offers flexibility in optional services.

“We are disappointed that the D.C. attorney general is targeting StubHub when our user experience is consistent with the law, our competitors’ practices and the broader eCommerce sector,” StubHub said in a statement. “We strongly support federal and state solutions that enhance existing laws to empower consumers, such as requiring all-in pricing uniformly across platforms.”

Beyond event ticketing, drip pricing can be seen in a number of industries. Food delivery firms may engage in the practice, heaping additional charges on at checkout. Airlines often advertise low base fares, with additional charges added later in the booking process. Hotels may use drip pricing by displaying attractive room rates initially, then tacking on resort fees, service charges and local taxes at checkout. Car rental companies might show a low daily rental rate but add costs for insurance, GPS, additional drivers and other fees during the booking process.

Regulators Have Been Cracking Down

Last fall, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) proposed a rule to prohibit “unfair or deceptive fees,” having closed the public comment period earlier this year and held an informational hearing in April.

“All too often, Americans are plagued with unexpected and unnecessary fees they can’t escape. These junk fees now cost Americans tens of billions of dollars per year — money that corporations are extracting from working families just because they can,” FTC Chair Lina M. Khan said in a statement in October. “By hiding the total price, these junk fees make it harder for consumers to shop for the best product or service and punish businesses who are honest upfront.”

States such as New York and California have introduced or enacted legislation of their own to crack down on these policies. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) also has a number of regulations cracking down on specific types of junk fees.

Legal Firms Weigh In

Legal firms have been navigating fee structure regulations for some time, looking to distinguish between acceptable practices and those that would violate local and federal regulations.

“California’s new law and the FTC’s Proposed Rule, as well as other federal and state legislative and enforcement actions, highlight a growing focus and scrutiny on fees and related pricing practices,” legal firm Latham & Watkins alerted its clients. “The increase in legislative and rulemaking activity in this area suggests that additional enforcement against how businesses advertise their prices and disclose fees could be on the horizon.”

These regulations also raise questions about other kinds of fees.

“One of the questions that remains uncertain among looming federal and state ‘junk fee’ and ‘drip pricing’ bans in 2024 concerns the impact these rules will have on credit card surcharges,” Venable LLP’s Christopher Boone and Ellen Traupman Berge note. “Is this a mandatory fee that must be incorporated in the total price under the new laws? Or does the consumer’s choice to use a credit card to pay make the convenience of paying by credit card an optional service or feature that need not be included in the advertised price?”

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The companies announced in a Wednesday (July 31) news release the launch of Instacart pickup services and Albertsons delivery for Albertson brands, including Safeway, Shaw’s, Acme, Jewel-Osco, Randalls and Vons.

In addition, Haggen Food & Pharmacy will be available on Instacart’s app for same-day delivery, the companies said in the release, adding that the new offerings will give Instacart users more access to groceries and essentials.

Through the free pickup service, shoppers can enter an order on Instacart to be picked up at Albertsons or its banner stores. The service will be available at over 2,000 locations by the end of August, according to the release.

Meanwhile, Albertsons Rapid, a new service, offers customers a 30-minute delivery for convenience store orders, including prepared foods, grocery staples and household essentials.

“Expanding our partnership with Albertsons Cos. showcases our commitment to serving as the leading technology partner in the grocery industry,” said Ryan Hamburger, vice president of retail partnerships at Instacart. “By introducing Albertsons Rapid, extending Instacart pickup services to more than 2,000 locations and adding Haggen for same-day delivery, we’re ensuring that customers enjoy an even faster, more flexible and effortless shopping experience.”

“By expanding our partnership with Instacart to offer pickup services through the Instacart app, we are offering customers another channel to fulfill their shopping needs,” Stephen Menaquale, senior vice president, eCommerce and fulfillment for Albertsons, said in the release.

“Shoppers are likely driving by one of our stores on their way home from work or after their kid’s soccer practice, and with Instacart pickup services, we are providing a convenient solution for grocery shopping that fits into their busy lives,” Menaquale added.

Instacart’s expanded partnership follows a recent series of tie-ups with other companies.

In May, it announced a new deal with Uber Eats, allowing its customers to order from restaurants via a new tab in its app, PYMNTS reported.

A week prior to that, Instacart partnered with retailer Kohl’s to become its exclusive same-day delivery provider. The move allows customers to order same-day or scheduled delivery of accessories, home essentials, skin care, beauty items, pet supplies and other products, while paying the in-store price and earning Kohl’s Rewards.

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The company, which provides fraud prevention and anti-money laundering (AML) technology using artificial intelligence (AI), said in a Wednesday (July 31) news release that the funding will drive its international expansion efforts.

Macquarie joins other investors including Rabobank, BlackFin Capital Partners and Sands Capital, according to the release.

“Hawk is a very exciting company. Their AI-centric approach to combatting financial crime is delivering impressive results, while the completeness of their enterprise solution in bringing AML, sanction screening and fraud prevention together really sets them apart from other vendors in this space,” said Elmar Broscheit, global co-head of Macquarie. “We look forward to supporting the growth of the company through our investment and expertise.”

Tobias Schweiger, CEO and co-founder of Hawk, welcomed the partnership and highlighted how it would help the company.

“We’re delighted that Macquarie Capital has chosen to work with Hawk. The global banking sector has recognized the enormous potential of AI in preventing, detecting, and managing financial crime. Leveraging Macquarie Capital’s network and experience scaling successful risk software businesses will enable us to further expand our client base in Asia-Pacific, the US and beyond,” Schweiger said in a statement.

PYMNTS sat with Wolfgang Berner, the co-founder and CPO of Hawk, earlier this month to discuss how large transaction models (LTMs), or generative AI models adapted to financial crime, can establish more accurate and comprehensive detection and prevention mechanisms.

These models are trained to detect novel criminal activities and cut false positives, discerning between authentic activities and illicit ones by detecting patterns and anomalies.

“The LTM is a booster for what we’ve been doing over the years, enhancing our ability to reduce false positives and find more crime,” Berner said.

The company introduced new fraud detection tools early in July, which are capable of spotting risk by identifying links between data points.

Its Entity Risk Detection module combines entity resolution and network analysis with real-time risk identification, PYMNTS reported July 3.

The module consolidates datasets and customer profiles, helping clients detect risk and complete investigations.

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Those breaches led to errors in the banking giant’s internal liquidity reporting, Reuters reported Wednesday (July 31), citing an internal document from Citi.

According to the report, the Fed’s Regulation W requires banks to restrict transactions such as loans to the affiliates under their control to protect depositors whose funds are insured up to $250,000 by the government.

Reuters notes that the infractions come as regulators criticize problems with Citi’s risk management and internal controls, and with the Federal Reserve and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) fining the bank $136 million two weeks ago for a lack of progress on compliance.

A spokesperson for Citi told PYMNTS the bank was not confirming the details of Reuters report.

The report included a statement from Citi saying the bank was “fully committed to complying with laws and regulations and have a strong Regulation W framework in place to ensure prompt identification, escalation and remediation of issues in a timely manner.”

Citi was also fined $400 million in 2020 after regulators found “ongoing deficiencies” in its handling of risk management and internal controls.

The bank’s “subsequent reaction to the breaches resulted in liquidity reporting inaccuracies,” according to the internal document at the center of the Reuters report.

In other Citi news, PYMNTS on Wednesday spoke with Debo Sen, head of payments at Citi Services, about the state of the instant/real-time payment space for the series, “What’s Next in Payments: The Halftime Report.”

She highlighted the rapid adoption of these new payment rails in regions such as Asia-Pacific (APAC) and Latin America, with India and Brazil leading the way. In India, about 85% of all payments are now real time, due to the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) system, a sign of the country’s advances in digital payments infrastructure.

Brazil is a close second, with nearly 80% adoption. However, this trend is not limited to emerging markets, Sen added, noting that the U.S. and the European Union are also putting forth regulations and building infrastructure to support real-time payments.

“The interesting thing is there is always a lot of conversation as to whether instant payments will cannibalize other methods of payment — but in fact, it is digitizing cash in those economies and eliminating cash in many cases,” Sen told PYMNTS.

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Bank Indonesia, the country’s central bank, has granted the company a payment system service provider license, allowing it to facilitate domestic and cross-border payments in the world’s fourth most populous country, PingPong said Wednesday (July 31).

“As one of the largest and fastest growing economies in Southeast Asia, Indonesia offers an incredible opportunity for enterprises scaling their operations globally,” David Messenger, CEO of global businesses at PingPong, said in a news release. “This license enables us to expand our reach and provide enterprises with end-to-end, one-stop cross-border payment solutions.”

Indonesia, the release noted, has a significant consumer market, with its gross domestic product expected to hit $1.5 trillion this year. The country’s young population and large labor force have made it one of the fastest growing nations in Southeast Asia, and an increasingly crucial country for companies that want to expand their global footprint, PingPong said.

“For businesses focussing on international trade, this license will help them expand and gain access to the region’s $320 billion export market,” the company said.

PingPong already holds more than 60 payment licenses and permits around the world, including in the United States, EU, U.K., Hong Kong and mainland China.

In other news from the cross-border payments space, PYMNTS discussed the importance of lowering the cost of these payments last week in an interview with Ram Sundaram, COO at TerraPay, during a discussion for the series “What’s Next in Payments: The Halftime Report.”

The World Bank’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) call for a reduction in the cost of cross-border remittances, which now stands at around 8%, underlining the importance of cost reduction as an innovation pillar within the payments field.

Sundaram said that his company’s mission is in line with this goal, aiming to reduce these costs further to allow for low-value transactions with prohibitive fees. These lower costs can unlock new use cases for cross-border services, he added, thus expanding revenue streams for financial institutions and service providers.

“If you do a $10 transaction today, you’ll probably spend a very significant part of that $10 as fees,” Sundaram said. “And we need to get to a point where that base fee is something that you don’t have to think about, so that you can do low-value transactions at scale — that could change the landscape of cross-border payments and remittances.”

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The chipmaker introduced new microservices for robot simulation, a cloud computing orchestration service, and an AI-enabled workflow for capturing human movements to train robots. These offerings are designed to help robotics companies, AI developers and software makers create more advanced humanoid robots quicker.

Experts say the development of humanoid robots could have implications for commerce and industry. These robots, with their human-like form and potential for complex movements, could revolutionize manufacturing, warehousing and customer service sectors. They may be able to perform tasks that are challenging for traditional robots, such as navigating cluttered environments or manipulating objects with human-like dexterity.

“AI-powered industrial and collaborative robots are significantly increasing efficiency, productivity and safety today compared to current manual processes,” Plus One Robotics CEO and co-founder Erik Nieves told PYMNTS. “They can take over repetitive, strenuous physical tasks like picking, moving and placing objects, freeing up human workers for higher-level roles. This can increase warehouse throughput and get products to consumers faster.”

Advancing the Field of Humanoid Robotics

“The next wave of AI is robotics, and one of the most exciting developments is humanoid robots,” said Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang in a statement. “We’re advancing the entire Nvidia robotics stack, opening access for worldwide humanoid developers and companies to use the platforms, acceleration libraries and AI models best suited for their needs.”

One key challenge in humanoid robotics is the vast amount of data required to train these machines. Nvidia’s new teleoperation workflow aims to address this by allowing developers to generate large amounts of synthetic data from a small number of human demonstrations.

“Developing humanoid robots is extremely complex — requiring an incredible amount of real data, tediously captured from the real world,” Alex Gu, CEO of Fourier, a general-purpose robot platform company, said in a statement. “Nvidia’s new simulation and generative AI developer tools will help bootstrap and accelerate our model development workflows.”

Nvidia’s move comes as several companies are making strides in humanoid robotics. Tesla unveiled its Optimus robot, which is designed for general-purpose use. Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced plans to deploy humanoid robots within the company’s operations as early as next year.

In a post on social platform X, Musk said: “Tesla will have genuinely useful humanoid robots in low production for Tesla internal use next year and, hopefully, high production for other companies in 2026.”

Tesla will have genuinely useful humanoid robots in low production for Tesla internal use next year and, hopefully, high production for other companies in 2026

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 22, 2024

The declaration signals Tesla’s ambition to integrate advanced robotics into its manufacturing processes, potentially reshaping labor practices in the automotive industry and beyond.

Meanwhile, Boston Dynamics’ Atlas robot demonstrated agility and balance. Agility Robotics’ Digit is being tested for warehouse operations by companies like Amazon. These developments underscore the growing interest and potential applications for humanoid robots across various industries.

“Boston Dynamics and Nvidia have a long history of close collaboration to push the boundaries of what’s possible in robotics, Boston Dynamics Chief Technology Officer Aaron Saunders said in a statement. “We’re really excited to see the fruits of this work accelerating the industry at large, and the early-access program is a fantastic way to access best-in-class technology.”

The Impact on Commerce and Industry

However, Nieves cautioned against overestimating the near-term impact of humanoid robots specifically.

“Generalized applications of humanoid AI robots are gaining interest, but for the foreseeable future, they’re far too impractical and expensive to replace warehouse workers,” he said. “Any and all robots working on variable tasks will routinely experience circumstances outside of their realm of expertise that necessitate intervention or cooperation from a human co-worker.”

Looking to the future, Nieves said he sees a transformative potential in combining AI capabilities with increasingly dexterous robotic systems.

“We’re witnessing an exciting period of rapid adoption for AI-powered robotics across many sectors, but warehousing and logistics are really leading the charge,” he said. “Autonomous mobile robots and intelligent picking arms are being deployed to handle a wide range of tasks like transporting inventory, loading and unloading, and processing parcels.”

Nvidia is also launching a Humanoid Robot Developer Program, which will offer early access to the new tools and the company’s existing robotics platforms. Several prominent robotics companies, including Boston Dynamics, Figure and ByteDance Research, have already joined the program.

For all PYMNTS AI coverage, subscribe to the daily AI Newsletter.

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The company announced in a blog post Wednesday (July 31) that the new multimodal AI foundation model uses advanced machine learning techniques, akin to those used in generative AI applications, to analyze data from cameras and sensors concurrently. This marks a departure from the previous sequential data analysis method, addressing issues such as camera obstructions and complex shopper behaviors more effectively.

“What we realized in the past couple of years is … we could combine all of these different signals into a single model and … teach a machine learning system to operate on the entirety of that information all at once to produce a receipt,” Jon Jenkins, vice president of Just Walk Out technology, shared on a call. “… When we took this multimodal, single foundation model approach, we found out that we could generate receipts faster, more efficiently and more accurately than we were able to with the existing system, which was already pretty good.”

Jenkins explained that this foundational technology allows Just Walk Out to process and integrate multiple types of data inputs — video from cameras, weight signals from sensors, RFID signals and images of items taken off shelves — into a comprehensive model, which is “kind of a game changer.”

Many consumers, for their part, are interested in this kind of checkout system, according to the PYMNTS Intelligence study “How We Will Pay Report: How Connected Devices Enable Multitasking Among Digital-First Consumers.” Specifically, among the 95% of consumers who own connected devices, 35% would be interested in an experience where they walk into a store, pick up a product and walk out without standing in a checkout line to pay. Sensors detect what they have put in their cart, and they are automatically charged for those items using an app with the payment method. Additionally, 6% said they already do this.

The Third-Party Future of Just Walk Out

Amazon’s Just Walk Out technology is gaining traction beyond its own stores, with over 170 installations in third-party locations, Jenkins said. Initially launched under Amazon’s retail division, the project shifted to AWS around two years ago to better serve non-Amazon businesses.

“There are going to be way more non-Amazon stores than Amazon stores,” Jenkins remarked, highlighting the need to cater to a broader market.

The pivot focuses on making the technology easily installable and operable for a range of external customers. Jenkins emphasized that Amazon’s own stores, like Amazon Go and Amazon Fresh, are now treated as just another customer among many. Most new installations are third-party locations, including airports and stadiums. For instance, Hudson operates 16 Just Walk Out-enabled stores in airports across the country, and several stadiums, including Lumen Field and the Washington Commanders’ stadium, have embraced the technology.

The Use Cases of Computer Vision Checkout

Jenkins highlighted several key areas where the technology is beginning to catch on. The initial large-scale third-party deployments of Just Walk Out were in stadiums across the country. Jenkins cited Lumen Field as an example, where the technology increased customer throughput by 85% and more than doubled revenue in the same space.

Additionally, in cases where stores need to, say, stay open overnight, the technology, operating unattended, is meant to present a viable financial model during those off-peak hours. Plus, in areas that see short bursts of high traffic, the technology is meant to allow these venues to manage increased demand without increasing labor costs, optimizing staffing efficiency.

Jenkins also stated that high-theft locations see a marked decrease in shrinkage with Just Walk Out. The technology effectively converts potential theft into legitimate purchases, as items taken off the shelf are automatically added to the customer’s virtual cart.

Additionally, for new facilities, Just Walk Out allows architects to allocate less space to retail areas. This reduction, Jenkins said, translates into cost savings in construction and operational efficiency.

For all PYMNTS retail coverage, subscribe to the daily Retail Newsletter.

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Bad news for companies creates opportunities for criminals — with disruptions like the recent CrowdStrike and Microsoft outage offering a perfect cocktail of urgency, uncertainty and money movement for scammers and fraudsters to exploit.

Against this backdrop, it is becoming increasingly critical for businesses to adopt a multi-faceted approach to prepare for and mitigate scams arising from digital disruptions.

The CrowdStrike failure was one of the largest IT disruptions in history, impacting a variety of critical global sectors including airlines, financial services, retailers and more. Per a Tuesday (July 30) report, the incident spurred opportunistic behaviors among scammers and malware creators, ranging from domain spoofing to artificial intelligence (AI) voice scams, phishing attempts and more.

The cyber threat landscape necessitates a proactive approach to cybersecurity. By understanding the threats and implementing comprehensive security measures, businesses can safeguard their operations from digital disruption.

Read more: Crisis as Catalyst: What AT&T, CrowdStrike Incidents Say About Recovery Best Practices

The Long Reach of the Cyber Failure 

As PYMNTS reported last Wednesday (July 24), CrowdStrike Intelligence has been monitoring a surge in malicious activity that leveraged the disruption event as a lure.

The company said it had received reports that threat actors are conducting activities such as sending phishing emails posing as CrowdStrike support to customers; impersonating CrowdStrike staff in phone calls; posing as independent researchers, claiming to have evidence the technical issue is linked to a cyberattack and offering remediation insights; selling scripts purporting to automate recovery from the content update issue; and registering malicious domain spoofing sites.

One of the most prevalent forms of cybercrime that has evolved with digital transformation is domain spoofing, often a precursor to phishing attacks. Domain spoofing involves creating a website that closely resembles a legitimate business’s site, tricking customers into believing they are interacting with a trusted entity. Cybercriminals use these spoofed domains to steal sensitive information such as login credentials, credit card numbers and personal data.

Some domains already flagged as malicious from the CrowStrike event include crowdstrikefix[.]com; crowdstrike-helpdesk[.]com; and crowdstrikebsod[.]com.

Phishing and so-called “spear phishing,” types of scam that have been covered here at PYMNTS, involve sending deceptive emails that appear to come from reputable sources. These emails often contain links to spoofed websites or attachments that, when clicked, install malware on the victim’s device. In recent years, the sophistication of these attacks has increased, with criminals employing techniques reliant on other advanced innovations like AI.

Read more: Firms Look to Mitigate Consequences From Data Breaches

Navigating the New Frontier of Digital Threats

As artificial intelligence (AI) continues to evolve, so too do the methods employed by cybercriminals. One of the more alarming developments is the use of AI to create deepfake audio and voice scams. These scams involve the use of AI to mimic the voices of executives or trusted individuals within an organization, tricking employees into transferring funds or disclosing sensitive information.

The technology behind deepfake audio has become increasingly sophisticated, making it challenging to discern between genuine and fraudulent communications. This form of social engineering leverages the trust placed in verbal communications and the authority of the impersonated individuals, making it a potent tool in the cybercriminal’s arsenal.

Malware, or malicious software designed to damage or exploit computer systems, has been a longstanding threat. However, digital disruptions have exacerbated the risks by increasing the number of potential entry points for these attacks. Business customers using digital platforms for transactions, communications or cloud storage are particularly vulnerable.

Given that many cyber threats exploit human vulnerabilities, employee training and awareness programs are critical. Staff should be educated on recognizing phishing attempts, the importance of secure password practices and the potential risks associated with social engineering tactics.

After all, the fallout from the CrowdStrike disruption is not the first time fraudsters have taken advantage of an unfortunate situation.

As PYMNTS reported last spring after the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), cybercriminals are constantly looking to capitalize on the ensuing confusion caused by a crisis — capitalizing on the fear-driven climate with behavioral-driven fraud tactics.

“You’d be shocked at how many people are trying to scam off [this situation],” David Tabachnick, chief financial officer at HungerRush, told PYMNTS at the time.

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In its second quarter 2024 earnings results reported Tuesday (July 30), the company shared that revenue rose 21% year over year, reaching $854 million.

“We’re driving further actionability across Pinterest by launching features that allow users to move further along in their shopping journeys and take action on what they see,” CEO Bill Ready told analysts on a call. “In doing so, we more than doubled the number of outbound clicks we sent to advertisers year over year for the third quarter in a row.”

The addition of new filters such as price, retailer and brand on high shopping intent search queries across fashion and home decor verticals has been helping users tailor their searches to their preferences and budgets, driving engagement.

The platform has also made video content more shoppable with features such as Shop the Look and video shopping ads. These developments cater to the strong visual nature of Pinterest, allowing merchants to add videos to their product catalogs and promote them. Shoppable video ads have driven higher click-through rates and lower costs per action for mass retailers compared to static catalog ads, highlighting the effectiveness of video content in driving user engagement and conversions.

Additionally, the platform is stepping up its artificial intelligence to personalize the experience, improving content relevance and resulting in more engaging recommendations for users. The upgrade in Pinterest’s search ranking algorithm, incorporating new signals, has led to an increase in the global search fulfillment rate, indicating that users are finding more of what they seek when they search on the platform.

Consumers want improved personalized shopping experiences. PYMNTS Intelligence’s report “Personalized Offers Are Powerful — but Too Often Off-Base“ revealed that 83% of all consumers are interested in receiving targeted discounts and promotion offers, although only 44% reported that the offers they are receiving are relevant to them.

“We’re continuing to invest in bolstering content discovery through generative AI-based guided search, which we first rolled out several months ago for the Home Decor vertical,” Ready said. “Guided search provides a structured way to break down these broad queries in the narrower avenues of exploration.”

This approach is particularly beneficial for episodic users who may be less familiar with the platform and appreciate the structured experience to discover fulfilling results. This investment in AI and search capabilities highlights Pinterest’s effort to make the discovery process more intuitive and effective, bridging the gap between inspiration and action.

Additionally, the platform is increasing in popularity among Generation Z. This demographic’s affinity for the platform spotlights Pinterest’s ability to meet these young consumers’ demand for creativity- and self-expression-driven platforms.

Gen Z consumers disproportionately shop via social media, per PYMNTS Intelligence’s study “Tracking the Digital Payments Takeover: Monetizing Social Media.” The findings showed that 43% of consumers use social media to discover goods and services and 14% do so to make purchases. For Gen Z, those numbers rise to 68% and 22%, respectively.

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