Pinterest built its own image-generation model, called Pinterest Canvas, that automatically creates lifestyle backgrounds for product photos. Advertisers upload a product image, and the model places it into a contextual scene — like a cozy living room or a kitchen counter — personalized to match styles popular on Pinterest. The tool launched for advertisers in October 2024.

Pinterest Canvas is a latent diffusion model (a type of generative AI that works by encoding images into a compressed mathematical space, then reconstructing them with modifications). It was trained on approximately 500 million publicly available Pins collected since 2009 — content the company acknowledges may include personal information and copyrighted material. The model uses a reward system trained on human judgments to select the best-generated backgrounds from multiple candidates. Early advertiser tests showed measurable improvements: Walgreens reported a 55% higher click-through rate and 13% lower cost-per-click using AI-generated backgrounds vs. standard product shots.