MW Pinterest shares are sinking. The AI risk is now, one analyst says.

By Barbara Kollmeyer

Pinterest shares are tumbling after disappointing revenue as analysts can't shake their AI disruption concerns.

Pinterest shares were sinking after disappointing results, with one analyst warning that AI disruption risk for the visual search and discovery company was coming up fast.

Pinterest (PINS) late Thursday reported fourth-quarter revenue of $1.32 billion, falling short of the $1.33 billion expected from analysts surveyed by Visible Alpha. Jefferies analysts said its outlook for revenue in the first quarter of $951 million to $971 million also disappointed.

Earnings per share of 67 cents was above the 54 cents of a year ago, just missing a forecast for 68 cents.

Pinterest shares sank 18% ahead of Friday's market open. The stock had lost 52% over the last year heading into the results.

The company late last month announced a restructuring, with plans to cut 15% of its workforce and prioritize AI-powered products. That's as Pinterest's advertising business has been struggling, and analysts worry that it will face more competition from AI enabled platforms.

Pinterest's growth in global monthly active users, which came in at 619 million over Wall Street expectations of 606 million, was a positive, said a team of Jefferies analysts led by James Heaney. But he said a major challenge for the company remains to "find a floor in revenue growth," despite easier comparisons as new headwinds continue to pop up.

Heaney said it remains tough to shake a "tangible AI bear narrative," for Pinterest.

"While AI downside for many names in our coverage requires assumptions around rapid, exponential AI progress, PINS' AI risk is more immediate, even if AI capabilities were to plateau at current levels given the core use case. As a result, despite the stock's optically cheap valuation, it remains challenging for buyers to step in," he and his team said in a note.

Its results come in a tumultuous week for stocks, as Wall Street has taken a sell-now, ask-questions-later approach to companies and sectors with even a whiff of worries about AI disruption.

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Bill Ready, CEO of Pinterest, told analysts on a call that he wasn't satisfied with the Q4 revenue performance, and "believe it does not reflect what Pinterest can deliver over time." He said while the company absorbed an exogenous shock linked to tariffs, which "disproportionately affecting ad spend from our top retail advertisers, this quarter also underscored where we need to move faster."

Ready added that the company plans to "keep AI at the core of everything we do, from highly personalized user experience and new features like Pinterest Assistant to the advertiser experience through Pinterest Performance+, and to optimizing our own internal operations."

"Our differentiation is clear. We're using AI to power visual search, discovery, and shopping, not general-purpose text-based search," he said.

-Barbara Kollmeyer

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February 13, 2026 05:11 ET (10:11 GMT)

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