Pinterest had 640 million monthly users in the second quarter of 2026, up 11 percent. It says more than half are Gen Z, its fastest-growing group, and that its users are about 70 percent women. For brands that do not advertise yet, organic Pins are still the way in, and Pinterest has published clearer guidance on how they work.
How organic content works
- Plan 45 to 60 days ahead. People search for seasonal ideas well before the season.
- Mix evergreen, trending and seasonal content, using Pinterest Trends and Pinterest Predicts.
- Add a call to action and a link. Since Idea Pins were merged into standard Pins in 2023, every Pin can carry a link.
- Use product tags or affiliate links where they fit.
AI labels, and seeing fewer AI Pins
Pinterest detects AI-generated or modified images through industry metadata and its own classifiers, and creators can disclose it themselves. Organic Pins show an AI modified label in the close-up view; for ads, the disclosure sits in the menu and can say the ad contains an AI-generated person. Labels can be appealed. Since October 2025 people can choose to see fewer AI Pins in categories such as beauty, fashion, home decor and art, with food and drink added in December 2025.
Pinterest presents this as balancing human creativity and AI. It has also been criticised: in February 2026, 404 Media reported artists' older work being mislabelled as AI. For brands, the lesson is to use real photography where it matters, and to disclose AI where it is used.
Pinterest Predicts 2026
Pinterest's yearly trends report, published in December 2025, named 21 trends for 2026, among them Cool Blue, Neo Deco, Scent Stacking, Poetcore, Khaki Coded and Darecations. Pinterest says its predictions have been 88 percent accurate over six years, that 67 percent of this year's trends are driven by Gen Z, and that checkouts on content linked to the 2025 trends rose 68 percent. The report has no data specific to the Middle East.
The Pinterest Trends tool shows up to two years of search data and has covered 30 more countries since 2022, with 90-day predictions added in 2025. We could not confirm that it covers the UAE or Saudi Arabia.
Creators
- Since June 2026, creators can link their Amazon Storefront, with affiliate details applied automatically when they tag Amazon products.
- Pinterest's paid partnership tool works in the app: the brand approves the tag, and only the brand can promote the Pin as an Idea ad.
- In March 2026 the creator marketplace #paid became an execution partner for Pinterest's creator partnership programme.
Ad rules, and what changes in November
- Weight-loss ads have been banned since 2021, including references to BMI and before-and-after images.
- Political ads are banned.
- From 12 November 2026, a new scams section bans products misrepresented with synthetic media, binary options are banned, and dismissible pop-ups are allowed on landing pages.
- Misusing Pinterest's generative AI tools can cost an account access to them.
Myths to drop
- That Pinterest has a five-dollar daily minimum budget.
- That you should Pin three to ten times a day.
- That Pinterest publishes user numbers for individual countries. It reports three regions only.
- That the Trends tool covers only the US, the UK and Canada.
What to do for a Gulf brand
- Build boards around what people plan: rooms, outfits, recipes, weddings, trips.
- Start Ramadan, Eid and National Day content six to eight weeks ahead.
- Write titles and descriptions in Arabic and English.
- Use 2:3 images, and disclose AI where it is used.
The GCC marketing calendar on this site lists the region's seasons and holidays, useful for planning Pins weeks ahead, and the social media image resizer crops pictures to Pinterest's 2:3.
